Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kara Danvers paid and thanked Priya for the coffee at the National City University Campus Coffee House and absentmindedly carried it to the opposite counter, the whole time scrolling with her other thumb through her social media feed on her phone. She looked at some pics of her alter ego, Supergirl. After four years of superhero-ing, while juggling her college career as a journalist major, she finally felt like she was getting used to her powers and enjoyed working with her sister, Alex, at the super-secret DEO. Someone had snapped and posted some photos of her rescuing a mother, her two kids, and a cat from a burning building last night and she was checking out the photos.

The blonde-headed girl placed the coffee cup down on the counter and reached for the cinnamon shaker, still looking at her phone. Her hand closed around the bottom of the large shaker, yet when she tried to pull it towards her, it doesn’t budge. Annoyed, she tugged again and when it still doesn’t move, she finally glanced over at it. Her hand was indeed on the bottom-half of the shaker, yet there was another hand attached to the top.

She looked at the hand and her eyes slowly follow the arm attached to the hand up to a shoulder and finally to a face with the most beautiful emerald green eyes she has ever seen. She blinked twice, still not comprehending what’s happening.

“Didn’t you learn how to share in kindergarten?” asked the pair of ruby red lips attached to the face with the beautiful green eyes.

“Wha-?” sputtered Kara, finally realizing that they had both reached for the cinnamon shaker at the same time and both had been tugging at it… and she was still staring at those lips. She let the shaker go quickly as if it was hot.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention at all... was looking at my phone…. I know, bad habit…”

Green eyes sprinkled her drink with cinnamon and regarded her coolly, which only made Kara ramble more.

“See, this isn’t my typical drink… I typically order a Caffe Latte, sometimes with a squirt of chocolate…. Today I ordered a latte with nutmeg and cinnamon, and was just going to add extra cinnamon… I like cinnamon… in fact, this isn’t even my typical day to be at the Campus Coffee House,” said Kara, nervously pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “My normal days are Tuesdays and Thursdays… Today is Monday, I know, but my class in Investigative Journalism got canceled and I thought I would pop in here and get a quick something to drink….you know, change up my routine…. That’s why I got a drink I don’t normally get…” Her rambling dissolved, as Kara forgot how to form cohesive sentences or the English language altogether.

Green eyes pushed the cinnamon shaker towards Kara.

“It’s free now,” she said, nodding with her head to the shaker. Kara couldn’t help but notice her hair was raven black, tied in a tight bun at her neck.

“Uh, thanks,” said Kara. “I’m Kara by the way,” extending her right hand, finally coming back to her senses.

“Lena,” said the dark-headed woman, turning towards Kara and shaking her hand with a firm grip. Kara let go, and removed the lid to her drink and began sprinkling her coffee with cinnamon.

“I haven’t seen you around here before. Do you come here often?” inquired Kara of Lena.

“Yes, considering the Coffee House is in the Business Building and I am majoring in business, among other things” said Lena, the last part mumbled, as if an aside.

“Oh, you’re majoring in business? I’m majoring in Journalism, although I am finishing up my last year and will be interning at CatCo Worldwide Media this summer,” offered Kara. “Hey, I am working on this story for the National University School newspaper,” Kara continued, “On students from different majors, you know, why they chose it, what they plan to do with their degree after college, that sort of thing and I haven’t talked to anyone getting a Bachelor’s Degree in business yet.”

“It’s a Master’s actually,” said Lena archly.

“What?” asked Kara, not comprehending.

“I said, I am getting a Master’s Degree in business, not an Undergraduate Degree,” corrected Lena. “Um, don’t you think that’s enough cinnamon?” asked Lena, lifting her chin to indicate Kara’s hand. Oh Rao, thought Kara, she forgot she was shaking the cinnamon shaker the whole time she was talking to Lena. What a dork, she admonished herself. “Oops, I wasn’t really paying…”

Kara looked down at her cup as Lena walked by her, ready to leave the cafe. Kara could not let this happen. She hastily replaced the to-go lid and grabbed her phone and the coffee cup.

“Um, hey, Lena, I know this is sudden, but would you like to get together sometime, grab a cup of coffee?” Lena stopped and turned around to face Kara. She held up her coffee cup and shook it slightly.

“Oh, yes, I see you already have coffee. No, I meant another time. We could get more coffee...”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” interjected Lena, as she leaned against the long horizontal bar of the door handle, preparing to leave.

“Uh, no, no,” backpedaled Kara verbally. “It’s just, so I can interview you, you know, for my story... “

Lena pushed the door with her hip and exited the Coffee House, leaving Kara to trail after her. “How funny you thought it was a date,” continued Kara. “If I was going to ask someone out on a date, believe me, they would know…” Kara tended to ramble when she was nervous, and suddenly she was VERY nervous in Lena’s presence.

Lena was in the hallway of the main building and reached the double doors to go outside. She pushed one open and walked out to the top of the stairs of the building. Kara followed. And then she suddenly stopped because she felt she was chasing Lena. Lena continued halfway down the stairs and turned to look back up at Kara. “That could be fun,” she said.

A wave of relief washed over Kara. “Oh, great.’ She broke into a huge grin, as she watched Lena turn and continue to the bottom of the stairs. “Hey wait,” she called down, “I don’t have your contact info…”

Lena, having reached the pavement at the bottom of the stairs, turned and looked up with a devilish grin and a gleam in her eye and said back to Kara, “Come find me.”

For once, Kara was rendered mute.

“Hey Kara, there you are,” shouted a voice to her right. Waving at her from a short distance away was Pam, her classmate in journalism. “We decided to go to the library to study since class was canceled, come join us,” she called out.

“Hey Kara,” called Dave, one of the guys with Pam, also in Kara’s canceled journalism class. “Guess how many skittles I can put up my nose!”

“Hey Kara…. don’t” said a third voice, Kevin, who was also from the canceled class and was walking with Pam and Dave. Dave punched Kevin playfully on the arm.

“Okay guys, just give me a minute, I’ll meet you in the library,” she called back. Then she turned her attention to the bottom of the stairs, however the sidewalk was empty. Where had Lena gone? Kara looked left just in time to see a well-turned ankle in high heels disappear behind the foliage of a tree. Lena had already left.

Kara ran back inside through the double doors of the Business Building and through the doors of the Coffee House and up to Priya at the counter.

“Dude, that was painnnnnnful,“ drawled out Priya, who had witnessed most of the exchange between Lena and Kara. “You have zero game.”

Ignoring her words, Kara leaned on the counter after setting down her coffee cup, breathless. “Priya, you have to help me. Who was that girl I was talking to? Please tell me you know who that was?”

“Why Kara… you mean you didn’t realize you were talking to Lena Luther, girl genius?”

---

Lena was in a foul mood. She was walking across the campus quad, each stride of the bricks a rebuke. It was now Wednesday, and she hadn’t heard a peep out of blondie from the coffee shop. As soon as she got home from the encounter on Monday, she had opened her computer and logged into her school account, waiting for the message that she was so sure would come. After all, the girl had to have known who she was, her famous last name, that’s why she was so nervous and stammering around her, right?

She ran the conversation through her mind for the 100^th time. Yes, she didn’t give her last name, but she hated how everyone she met instantly recognized her due to having her picture in the news for various things and for being attached to the famous last name of Luther, and her psychopath brother, Lex, and her testifying at his trial two years ago when he tried to kill Superman and almost killed humanity instead. Why couldn’t they remember her for her success of her inventions? And Kara hadn’t give her last name to her, so she couldn’t look her up, either, thought Lena for the 50^th time.

On Tuesday, when she didn’t get a ping on the campus messaging system, a way for all National University Students to connect with one another, she took matters into her own hands. The blonde girl had said she normally went to the Coffee House on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Funny, Lena normally appeared there on Monday and Wednesdays due to her hectic schedule of a dual master’s program of business and physics. She certainly thought it was fate that had brought them together when Kara had run into her on her “off” day. So after spending a miserable hour in her first class on Tuesday, early in the morning, not hearing anything the professor said, she blew off the rest of that day’s classes, something she had never done in undergraduate or graduate school, to hang out in the Coffee House for hours hoping to “run” into Kara again.

The girl at the counter had been nice to her and didn’t shoo her away or ask why she kept hanging about. And she would never have admitted it was because she was hoping to catch a glimpse of the blue eyes of a certain person again. At least she knocked out two research papers while glancing hopefully at the door anytime someone entered.

After not making contact with Kara Tuesday, she had gone home dejected. She couldn’t even ask any friends if they knew Kara’s last name or who she was because she didn’t have any school friends. Normally that didn’t bother her. It came with the last name. That and her adopted mother Lillian drilling into her that anyone she met was after something from her and consequently she really didn’t trust anyone.

Now it was Wednesday, and while she did attend all her classes this morning, she still didn’t retain a word her professors had said. It was lunch time, but she was not hungry. After lunch on Wednesdays, she usually attended an optional afternoon lab, but she just wasn’t in the mood to dive into her physics project. 

And to top it all off, she thought, as she strode across the quad, she was getting a headache. There was a shrill buzzy noise drilling into her head. Wait, she realized, the loud whiny sound was moving. She had been walking without really seeing, or concentrating on her surroundings, but she now realized the sound was in back of her, now in front, now in back. She stopped walking, and the source of the sound circled around to her front. It was a small remote controlled toy truck. It had been circling her. Once Lena stopped, the truck (and the whiny noise) stopped too. Then it made a three point turn in front of her and faced her on the path.

Someone must be watching me, thought Lena. She scanned the quad ahead of her but only saw two girls walking on a diagonal path and not paying any attention to her. She swiveled around to check out the quad behind her, but it was empty. She turned back to the truck and then looked up at the rows and rows of windows in the four buildings that make up the quad. The operator could be at anyone of them, she contemplated.

The truck moved forward and back, forward and back. Lena looked down at it. It seemed to be trying to get her attention. Yes, the operator of the truck was definitely watching her, she thought. She peered closer at the truck. There was an envelope, about the size of a typical birthday card, taped to the truck’s windshield. She leaned forward and saw her first name clearly printed on the front.

What the… she mused? She took a step towards the truck and the truck backed up the same distance. Instinctively, she crouched down on her heels and held out her hand slowly, as if enticing a small animal. I must be nuts, thought Lena, as she realized what she was doing. The truck drove slowly towards her until it was just under her hand. She put one hand on the hood of the truck and one on the card and carefully removed the tape that held the card on the windshield. With the card freed and in her hand, the truck backed up as Lena stood. Lena gave the truck a bemused smile, then turned her attention to the card.

She turned it around and she noticed the envelope flap wasn’t sealed shut, just tucked into the back of the envelope. She opened the flap and took a blank card out. When she opened the card, a rectangular ticket slipped out and she just caught it. She moved it aside to read the hand written message on the inside of the card.

She looked up from the card after reading the last line. Blondie, she thought, and the knowledge hit her like a ton of bricks. It also sent a shiver from her head down to her toes. She did find me after all!

She peered closer at the ticket. It was indeed for the National City Museum of Tech, worth one price of admission, with today’s date. It also said the holder of the ticket gained entrance to a special exhibit called “The Rise of the Machines.” She smiled. She loved a good Terminator reference.

Meanwhile, the truck started to move, and sped through Lena’s legs and hurried on the long path behind her. Lena spun around and started to walk, then slightly jog after the truck as it put on speed. Kara must be the operator, or at least with the operator, she realized, so it was imperative she follow that truck. The truck began to pick up speed now that Lena was following it and it took a sharp 90 degree angle to the right on the adjoining path and sped away from Lena.

Kara, who was indeed with the operator of the truck and who was peeking around the corner of the Southwest entrance to the quad that was behind and to Lena’s left as she read the card, started to pound on her friend Winn’s back. “Faster, Winn, faster, she's running after the truck. She can’t find us,” she loudly whispered, pulling him back from the entrance.

Kara had met Winn their first year in college, when some jock-type dudes were giving Winn a bad time, surrounding him and making rude comments about what a nerd he was. Kara, who was always for the underdog, couldn’t stand to see the bullying, so had marched right up to Winn and grabbed his arm and said, “There you are darling,” as if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. The jocks parted to let the couple through and Winn thanked her profusely when they were out of earshot of the bullies and they had become fast friends ever since.

Winn was a mechanical wizard. Not to mention pretty smooth with a computer. He was majoring in computer science and had also secured an internship at Catco Magazine, like Kara, starting when he graduated this spring, but it was in the IT department. It was his truck that had delivered the card to Lena and he was now operating the controls.

Winn, what with the pounding on his back of his best friend, and a beautiful woman chasing his truck, panicked. The truck approached the entrance where Kara and he had been hiding and spying on Lena and instead of slowing the truck Winn twisted the joystick to maximum throttle.

Lena, seeing the truck accelerate, not to mention having a hard time running in her high heels, stopped chasing the truck. She watched it disappear through an entranceway to the quad. She turned back around. She didn’t need to chase it. She had a date with Kara at the Tech Museum in a few hours and needed to prepare. A non-date, like the card said, she reminded herself as she walked back through the quad, happier than she had been all week.

Meanwhile, the truck had indeed sped through the quad entranceway, past Winn and Kara and launched itself off the top of a flight of stairs, crashing and ejecting its battery pack. “Run,” yelled Kara, who bounded down the stairs, scooped up the toy truck, the battery compartment door, and the battery pack and kept going to the parking lot.

“You didn’t tell me there would be running involved,” Winn shouted after her as he ran to catch up.

Chapter Text

Lena wasn’t sure what was going to happen or where she would met Kara, so she used a ride-hailing app to get a car to drop her directly in front of the Tech Museum. She exited the car and glanced around, but no signs of anyone blonde, so she walked to the entrance. She was wearing her most “dressed-down” pair of jeans (which still cost $300) and low-heeled boots and a thin sweater set, with her hair up in a tight pony tail.

She opened the heavy glass door of the Museum entrance, and noticed there was a space before a second set of glass doors that lead inside. Because she was being hyper vigilant, she spotted Kara leaning against the wall of that space, one foot on the floor, one leg bent and foot flat on the wall, looking into the Museum. She had on a much more well-worn pair of jeans and a pink cardigan, glasses, with the front of her hair pulled back from her forehead, with her golden hair loose down the back.

Kara turned her head, her glasses catching the light, and noticed Lena a split second after Lena spotted her. She broke into a huge grin and pushed off the wall and walked towards Lena.

“Why Lena, what are you doing here?” Kara said in mock surprise. “What a pleasant surprise to see you,” she continued.

Oh brother, thought Lena, she was such a bad actress. However, she played along.

“Why Kara, what a surprise it is to see you here, too,” she said demurely.

“Do you come to the Museum often?” asked Kara.

“No, no, I don’t. In fact, I was invited here… by a machine… a small remote controlled truck. It gave me this ticket,” said Lena, holding up her ticket.

“What a coincidence, the same thing happened to me,” said Kara in mock astonishment, holding up an identical ticket.

She should never play cards for money, thought Lena, as she has no poker face. Too open. But she decided to keep playing along.

“Well, should we go in?” asked Lena.

“Great idea,” Kara said a little too brightly, and swiftly tugged open one of the glass doors for Lena.

They stepped foot into a large, bright atrium, three stories tall with a sky light and a large purple, blue and green glass sculpture hanging down for the celling. The white-painted walls give the air of a large, fresh, clean space. Lena took a few tentative steps forward toward the ticket counter and then Kara came even with her and said, “This way,” sweeping her arm right, “We already have tickets, we don’t have to stand in that line.”

Lena nodded and let Kara lead. Kara took them over to the right spot and the usher tore their proffered tickets and handed back their stubs. “Excuse me,” said Kara to the usher, “Where is the special exhibit, The Rise of the Machines?”

“All the way up to the third floor,” he answered, pointing skyward.

“Okay, great, thank you,” Kara replied. “This way,” she said to Lena, leading her to an escalator on the far wall that Lena hadn’t noticed. As they approached, she noticed that the escalator went all the way to the third floor. Kara let Lena step on first, and took the step behind her. As they rose in the air, looking down on the atrium they had just crossed, it started to feel a little like flying, thought Lena.

As they were propelled higher on the escalator, they started to draw even with the bottom of the large purple, blue and green glass sculpture that was suspended from the ceiling.

“Oh look, a Chihuly,” said Lena, nodding towards the sculpture.

“Um... bless you,” said Kara

“No,” laughed Lena, “That sculpture, it’s made by an artist named Dale Chihuly. He is famous for his glass creations.” Kara really looked at it. It was large, about one and half stories tall, with colorful, curvy glass tubes that grew out of the center, tapering at the end, pointed at the floor.

“Wow, I guess I never really thought of that as a work of art or who the artist was,” said Kara with new-found respect.

The escalator reached the third floor and they stepped off. There was a large sign indicating the start of the special exhibit about the Rise of the Machines. Another usher checked their ticket stub to make sure they had spent the extra admission and were here at the appointed time and once squared away, gestured them inside. Once inside, there was a large poster detailing the exhibit. There are also other things to read, surrounding the displays, explaining the history of machines, from the 3^rd and 4^th century to today. There is even a large wing dedicated to computers, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Lena liked to take her time and read all of the posters and inscriptions of the machines depicted or displayed, something Kara appreciated. The premise of the show was: what made a machine, and can machines be taught to think?

As they wondered through the exhibit, Lena asked Kara what she thought of the questions that were posed. What did she think was a machine? How do you define a machine? It was nice to be asked her opinion by Lena, Kara thought to herself, and have her listen so intently. When Kara reciprocated and asked for Lena’s opinion, the answers she gave were surprisingly well thought out, sometimes complex, and just… unexpected. Lena catches her off guard in the way she thinks and processes information. Once Kara gave an answer in response to a question about the difference between a machine and a robot and Lena had remarked, “good point, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” and Kara practically leaped in the air. To have someone of Lena’s intellect give her such a high complement felt really good. And she wanted the compliments to keep coming.

When they reached the last wing on artificial intelligence and machine learning, Lena was a fountain of knowledge not listed on the show’s inscriptions. She had studied this subject in school and on her own and knew a lot, and appeared she was on the fore-front of some of the newer technologies. Some of it was hard for Kara to understand but when she asked for more clarifying information, Lena was able to break down complex abstractions into easy-to-digest bites. She also made her answers relatable back to the real world. For Kara, studying journalism and hoping to make her living with words, this large amount of talking, this back and forth they just had, was a little bit of heaven, leaving a warm feeling settling over her stomach.

Wait, Kara mentally snapped her fingers, Earth to Kara, wake up, you are not falling for this women you recently met and have barely spent two hours with.

“Um, what was that?” Kara asked, realizing Lena had been asking her a question and she had zoned out, marveling at the exchange of words they had been trading all exhibition-long. Lena was now indicting a display with her hand.

“I was asking you if you had heard of Watson, the computer that was taught to play the game show 'Jeopardy?'” repeated Lena.

“Oh, no, I hadn’t.” Kara listened to Lena describe how they had taught a computer to think and play a game show of questions, the whole time looking at her lips and only hearing half of her words. The exhibit came to an end and Kara, who had finally snapped out of her trance of admiring Lena, steered them out on to the third floor and down a flight of stairs.

When they emerged from the stairs to the second floor, there was a large sign stating “The Science of Cooking.” I’ll pass, thought Lena. However the wall had a sign saying, “What is it?” with some gadgets attached to the wall. Lena recognized the hand mixer, although it might have been from seeing it in a cartoon or something, not from an actual kitchen. She had zero experience in that. She slowed down and looked at the second gadget, but couldn’t place it. Lena stopped to give it more thought, and Kara nearly bumped into her.

“Oh, look, a ricer,” exclaimed Kara, following Lena’s line of vision. There was a little wooden knob attached to a piece of wood next to the gadget that you could lift to see the answer and Lena walked over and lifted the door to get the answer.

“You’re right,” said Lena. “How did you know? Do you like to cook?”

“I like to eat, so I had to become good at cooking. What about you?” she inquired of Lena.

“I was never much of a cook,” admitted Lena, glossing over the fact that with the type of adopted mother she had, she certainly didn’t role model the domestic arts. “Since I find myself so busy with school, I often get something in a restaurant most nights,” omitting the fact that she had every meal delivered, and from the more upscale restaurants where entrees start at $30 and up, not typical starving student college behavior.

“What is this contraption used for,” Lena indicted the ricer with her chin, to change the subject.

“You press food through the holes to soften it up. I use it mostly for mashed potatoes.”

“You make your own mashed potatoes?” asked Lena, incredulously.

“I don’t make mashed potatoes,” proclaimed Kara, “I make the fluffiest, creamiest mashed potatoes ever!” she amended.

“Okay, what is this thing?” indicted Lena of the next cooking gadget.

“That’s a garlic press,” answered Kara, “for pressing garlic,” she added helpfully.

“It looks like a medieval torture device, like you stick your finger in it and someone smashes it,” said Lena, tracing her finger inside the press.

Kara noted the slenderness of said fingers. “Um, I can tell you haven’t spent any time in a kitchen, and that last comment is a little disturbing,” said the blonde, although she said it with such gentle good humor, Lena was curiously not offended.

“Okay, I recognize this, this is a juicer, for squeezing oranges to get their juice” she said to change the subject, and lifted the wooden handle to reveal the answer to make sure she was right. “But what is this?”

“That’s an apple corer, for taking the center out of apples,” said Kara. “It saves time when making apple pies.” Lena opened the wooden door to check the answer and looked back at Kara, giving her the side eye. “I don’t think I have ever met anybody who makes their own homemade apple pies,” said Lena, suspiciously.

“Well, now you have,” said Kara. “The secret ingredient is nutmeg.”

Lena chuckled. “You’re secret is safe with me.”

If only, thought Kara, thinking more about her secret identity as Supergirl and her Cousin Superman’s feud with another Luther.

Lena studied Kara’s face due to her lack of response and then added, “Because I am a terrible cook,” as if Kara didn’t quite get her joke.

“Oh yes, um-hmm,” agreed Kara quickly, shaking away her thoughts.

“What about this, the world’s smallest guitar?” said Lena, plucking the small metal strings of the next device, producing a tuneless sound.

“No, that’s an egg slicer. Do you see the egg-shape under the wires?” asked Kara. “You place a hardboiled egg in the curved part and press down on the handle and the strings slice through the egg, making uniform slices.

“Oh, good observation,” countered Lena. “What about these strings on this one? There is no shape under the wire strings,” she said, plucking at the strings of the next device that were crisscrossed in half inch intervals inside a square, with handles at each end.

“Um, that, I believe, is a French fry cutter. You press it down over a peeled potato and get even slices for French fries, although you could use it to slice any vegetable, really,” Kara pointed out.

Lena lifted the wooden handle to confirm. “Right again, you really do know your way around a kitchen.”

“I’ll have to cook for you sometime,” said Kara, glancing around at some of the other displays in the kitchen exhibit. Lena’s cheeks started to burn. Kara’s tone was light and friendly, so why did the invitation seem oddly intimate to Lena?

Lena walked to a sign that asked, why add salt to boiling water? Glad for the distraction, Lena started reading, even though she knew the answer already. “You know, I always assumed adding salt to the water made the pasta or whatever we were boiling taste better,” said Kara, who had come up near Lena’s elbow and was also reading the display sign.

“Adding salt actually increases the boiling point of the water, meaning your water will have a higher temperature when you add your food, so it will cook better. Salted water also boils more quickly, even though it has a higher boiling point because adding the salt lowered the heat capacity of the water. You lose so much resistance to heating that the salted water boils much more quickly. And who is the ‘we’ in that previous sentence?” questioned Lena.

“Oh, my older sister Alex. We always liked cooking together as kids. And you sound just like her. I would say something to Alex about adding salt to the water for flavor and she would say the salt makes the water boil faster, and I would call her smarty pants or spoilsport for taking all the fun and magic out of cooking and then she would throw flour at me,” explained Kara, relishing the ending.

Lena chuckled appreciatively. “She sounds like a great big sister.” Still, was that how Kara saw her, thought Lena, a spoilsport or someone too smart for her own good? Suddenly, the answer mattered very much to Lena.

…

They left the cooking exhibit and walked to the next exhibit, and there, standing before them, with all the flashing lights and beeps and boops was a large sign that loudly proclaims, “The History of Video Games.”

Kara turned and put her hands on her knees and said enthusiastically to Lena, “No. Way!”

Lena laughed. “Sounds like fun. I’m game if you are,” stretching out the word “game.’

“Ha,” Kara laughed, appreciating the joke or pun or whatever. “Let’s go.” They entered the exhibit. They walked up to a sign mentioning the earliest forms of computer games, and then there are the games themselves spread out before them.

“Ooooh, look, it’s Pong,” said Lena, indicating a console. “Did you know these early gaming consoles, when hooked up to the old fat-backed TVs, would burn the outline of the pong court into the TVs?” asked Lena.

“I did not,” said Kara, as she grabbed a control stick and nodded at the other one, indicating Lena should play against her. The game moved too slowly and the controls were hard to regulate to hit the digital ping pong ball back and forth. Until Kara discovered the speed knob and then cranked the speed of the pong ball up so high that their eyes could barely follow it. The ball moved so quickly and kept racking up points for Kara against Lena that Kara could not stop laughing. When the game quickly got to ten, she doubled over with laughter. Lena couldn’t tell if she herself was laughing at how hard the video game was, or how hard Kara was laughing. They quickly move on to other classic games such as Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, and a race car driving game, with various success (or failures). Most games ended in fits of giggles.

Then they rounded a corner and they both saw it. Kara turned to Lena, hoping she knew what it was. Lena turned towards Kara. The eagerness on Kara’s face was adorable, registered Lena. They both said it at the same time. “Dance, Dance Revolution!”

“Oh, good, you’ve played before,” said Kara. It was not a question. Kara loved the interactive game so much she always assumed everyone else did, too.

Kara ran over and up onto the platform. Lena followed behind. The large video game machine had two screens and two identical foot pads with a grab bar behind each pad. The pad itself, about four feet by four feet, had four arrows, one each at north, south, east, and west. Inside the arrows were pressure sensors that can detect when you stepped on the arrow. Lena stood in the center of the pad on the right and Kara on the pad on the left.

“Let’s see, what song should we play? What’s your level of expertise?” Kara asked Lena, scrolling through the list of songs on the display screen.

“Let’s start out with something easy, it’s been MANY years since I used one of these things.”

“Okay, selecting from the easy list,” said Kara, pressing buttons. The music started and arrows appear at the bottom of the screen and started to scroll to the top. When a scrolling arrow moved directly under the fixed arrow at the top of the screen, the player was supposed to step on the corresponding arrow on the foot pad. The stepping usually corresponded to the beat of the song. The machine rated how well you hit the arrow in time, giving you a score, and pitted the two players against each other. Sometimes a player stepped with only one foot on a pressure sensor, and sometimes the song had combos, such as stepping east-west at the same time, or north-south. So it was simulated dancing.

Kara and Lena hit their marks in synchronized beats. Kara kept glancing sideways to see how Lena was doing. If it had been a while since Lena had played this game, no rust showed, she thought. She was able to keep up nicely. The song ended and Kara just barely edged out Lena with her score.

“Hey, not bad. Now you choose a song,” suggested Kara. Lena chose one with a little more tempo. The song started and they went back to moving together. Kara enjoyed the game and liked moving her body, but she was all about the score and timing her stepping to hit the marks just as the display wanted. So her movements were slightly jerky and staccato-like.

Kara kept peeking at Lena, telling herself it was to check that the game wasn’t too hard for her dance partner. She noticed that Lena was less worried about being perfect or hitting the marks in time, or what the score was and had, well, a more sensual way of moving. For her, thought Kara, it was moving her feet in a continuous, connected interplay, making her movements seem more flowing. And she used her arms more, sometimes held above her head and swaying to the beat. It was quite distracting.

The machine called for a north-south combo. Last time, Lena had jumped and landed her feet simultaneously on north-south, ending up facing left, and Kara had done the same, facing left. This time, probably because Kara had been so busy checking out Lena that when it came time to hit both pads, Kara jumped and landed both feet down while facing right. Lena landing facing left, so that they are now staring at each other, a few feet between them. Green eyes locked on to blue. Both Lena and Kara stopped moving. The machine started beeping at them, and the fake crowds started to boo as they missed step after step.

Finally, a little boy who was waiting his turn to use the dance machine said, “Wow, you two sure aren’t very good!” This snapped Lena and Kara out of their trance. The song ended abruptly and both screens showed the words “You fail!”

“Oh gosh, I guess you’re right,” said Kara to the little boy. “Come on Lena, I think we over-stayed our welcome.”

“I think you’re right,” said Lena, a little breathlessly. Lena felt herself blush for the second time today. They both stepped down off the platform from opposite ends and to go look for another game to distract them. The exhibit was now displaying the later video game consoles, and neither woman were too interested. There was a lot of first person shooter-type games. Or maybe both were thinking about the shared dancing experience.

They wandered through the machines and drifted out of the video games area and came upon the snack bar.

The smell of fried foods permeated the air. “Are you hungry,” asked Kara, turning to Lena.

“No, not particularly,” answered Lena. Kara kept walking, trying to hide her disappointment at not stopping to eat. Lena saw a display sign for the Tech Museum’s large-screened IMAX Movie Theater. “Oh, I love IMAX theatres. What’s playing?” she asked.

“Hmm, ‘The Treasures of the Deep,’ about creatures that live miles under the sea, it says. There is another showing in 40 minutes,” answered Kara, reading the marquee.

“That sounds interesting. Do we have to pay for tickets separately?” Lena asked, spying a box office a little bit away from them. She didn’t want Kara to have to spend any more money on her. She wasn’t sure of Kara’s financial background but most college students were hard up for money, except for her, a trust fund baby, she noted wryly.

“No, you don’t have to buy tickets but they make you get in line and select your seats so they don’t sell out and everyone knows where they are sitting, and so families don’t get separated. We just have to wait in line to pick our seats,” she answered, nodding with her head at the line before the box office.

“Sounds good,” said Lena, walking towards it with Kara at her side. They reached the end of the short line. Kara’s stomach rumbled and she crossed her arms across her chest and hugged herself, willing her stomach not to give way her hunger. “Is there a bathroom close by?” enquired Lena, who seemed oblivious to her distress.

“Yes,” answered Kara, relieved Lena hadn’t noticed her stomach gurgling. “Just around the corner from the snack bar we just passed,” she pointed out.

“Great, I’ll meet you back here.” Lena walked back towards the snack bar.

Kara got in a conversation with a young boy ahead of her in line about his favorite sea creatures. The woman two families ahead of them was taking an awfully long time picking out her seats, wanting to make sure she got just the perfect pair for her and her granddaughter. She didn’t seem to understand that the theater had stadium seating, with each row higher than the next so everyone could see the extra large screen and that the higher the row number, the higher the seat was in the theatre. There was no such thing as a bad seat in the house.

Finally, it was Kara’s turn, and she can see from the seating chart on the computer screen that the theater was about one quarter full, with most of the taken seats in the lower half of the theatre. She chose two seats in the fourth row from the top, right in the middle. Now I got the perfect pair, she thought to herself, trying not to focus on the fact that currently they were the only two in the row.

Kara stepped to the side of the ticket counter and looked around and realized Lena had not come back from visiting the bathroom. She walked back towards the snack bar to look for her. As she got closer, she realized Lena was standing on the edge of the snack bar floor, holding two giant soft pretzels in wax paper, one in each hand, a bottle of water tucked under her arm, and wearing a big, gigantic grin.

“Lena… what? I thought you said you weren’t hungry?” said Kara, hurrying over to her.

“A girl can change her mind, can’t she? Or she can hear the not very faint sounds of another girl’s stomach rumbling…” laughed Lena.

“Gee, I was hoping you didn’t hear that,” said Kara, slightly embarrassed.

“I think half of the Museum heard it,” she teased. “Do you want mustard for your pretzel?”

“Always!” answered Kara, taking one of the pretzels from her. Lena removed the bottle of water out from under her arm and followed Kara to the snack bar counter. There were two large yellow containers with pumps at the top for dispensing mustard. Lena set the bottle of water down and went to work. Kara got busy at her mustard container, carefully pumping out mustard so that she drew a line of yellow across every part of the top side of her pretzel. When finished, and licking a finger or two that got accidently coated, she glanced at Lena, and burst out laughing.

“What?” sputtered Lena? Instead of coating her pretzel with mustard as Kara had, Lena had neatly filled up three small paper containers with mustard.

“Lena, those are for ketchup!” said Kara, indicting the tiny paper cups now full of mustard instead of ketchup.

“Says who?” said Lena, indignant that she was perceived as doing it wrong. “I hate getting mustard everywhere, and besides, who made you the mustard police?”

“Oh, mustard police, I want that job,” laughed Kara easily, steering them to an open table with two wire backed chairs. Lena set down the bottle of water, napkins and her three cups of mustard and smoothly sat down in her chair and took a bite of her pretzel.

They chatted of this and that, and soon the talk somehow turned to Kara describing one disastrous summer when she was 15 and worked as a dog walker. Lena inwardly marveled at how Kara was able to boldly, breezily just tell her about all the missteps she made, even laugh about them. She had no compulsion to hide her mistakes from her.

Once, in undergrad in the lab, Lena had mixed the wrong chemicals together and made a really strong unpleasant smell. The lab smelled like rotten eggs for three days. Everyone asked who had done it, and the class had made many jokes about the smell, but she could never bring herself to tell her fellow classmates or her professor it was her. Something about that went deep down, her adopted mother Lillian never willing to admit when she was wrong. Yet here was this amazing creature just laughing and chatting away, admitting her (many) mistakes and cheerfully owning them. Who was this girl, wondered Lena?

Kara had made quick work of her pretzel, even with all the storytelling, and Lena can only get through one quarter of the doughy treat. Lena suddenly seized on an idea and broke a long piece off her pretzel, placed it on a napkin and slid it across the table to the other girl. Kara, not missing a beat about her time walking a St. Bernard, a schnauzer and a toy poodle, picked up the piece of pretzel, gave her thanks, and began to use it as a conductor’s baton to help animate her story. Lena just sat back and enjoyed the performance. She was funny, she was charming, she was self-deprecating, and this was so not what she expected of her, for some reason, thought Lena. And so not your type, a little voice inside her head said. And yet….

Kara paused, reached across the table and dipped her pretzel piece in one of Lena’s cups of mustard, then took a bite and chewed and swallowed and continued her story. Lena raised her eyebrow, but Kara seems oblivious that she had just violated Lena’s personal space, so she kept feeding her bits until her pretzel was gone and the story was reaching its inevitable conclusion involving a swimming pool. Kara was laughing hard now at the memory of her tangled up in all three of the dogs’ leashes.

“And then a squirrel appeared and the dogs all went in three different directions and we all fell into the pool,” laughed Kara.

“Wait, you and all the dogs went into the pool? Were they okay, could they swim?” asked Lena, totally engrossed in this story.

“That’s the funny thing,” laughed Kara, now barely able to talk.

“Oh, it gets funnier?” Lena marveled.

“Yes,” said Kara, trying to compose herself, “We landed in the shallow end, and although I could stand, the dogs couldn’t, and for some reason, I was really worried about the toy poodle, she seemed so fragile, so I untangled myself and tried to reach her. But it turns out this was her backyard and she often swam in the pool with her owners, so she was not afraid of the water and was quickly doggie paddling towards the steps to get out. The schnauzer saw what she was doing and turned and quickly paddled after her. It was the St. Bernard who was a big baby. I don’t think she had ever been in a pool before, because as I was trying to wade towards the two smaller dogs, the St. Bernard, Bessie, was trying to climb on top of me,” she laughed, a musical sound to Lena’s ear. “So here I am holding 90 pounds of wet, panicked dog, and out of the house to see what the commotion is, comes the girl I had been crushing on all summer long…” Kara was now laughing so hard she couldn’t continue.

“Wait…Bessie?” said Lena, totally glossing over the girl crush comment. “Bessie the St. Bernard?” which made Kara laugh all over again.

“Yes, Bessie,” confirmed Kara, who was now bending at the waist in her chair, holding her stomach from laughing.

And that’s when it happened.

Kara was laughing so hard she snorted.

“Did… did you just snort?” asked Lena, her eyes widening.

“No,” mouthed Kara, who now couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. As she turned to inhale some oxygen, she snorted again. Which made her laugh harder.

“Oh my,” said Lena, “no more soft pretzels for you. It gets you too riled up!”

“I’m so glad this is not a date,” laughed Kara some more, grabbed some napkins and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She had laughed so hard tears had sprung up.

“Oh,” said Lena non-committedly. She wasn’t sure what to make of that last comment.

“Yeah, the last thing you want to do when meeting someone new is snort with laughter. Or order spaghetti,” she said, rearranging her glasses back on her face.

Lena wasn’t sure what to say about that, either, and a rather awkward silence descended on the table as Kara rearranged and composed herself. Lena noticed a spot of mustard on the right side of Kara’s mouth. “Oh, you have a little bit of mustard, right there,” Lena indicated with her finger on her own mouth.

“Oh, let me get it,” said Kara, grabbing a napkin.” Here?” she asked, wiping the wrong side of her mouth.

“No, the other side,” Lena gestured at herself again, and Kara still missed the spot. “No, wait a sec,” Lena had an idea. She grabbed the last remaining napkin, and wet it with the water bottle. She then placed the bottle down and held the napkin out across the table to Kara.

Kara leaned in over the table close to Lena’s hand. Oh, thought Lena. She had held out the napkin for Kara to take and wipe her face. Now Kara leaned in and wanted Lena to wipe the mustard. She paused for a beat, and then thought, he who hesitates is lost, and wiped the mustard off of Kara’s mouth. It was way more intimate then it needed to be.

“Did you get it all,” asked Kara.

“Um, yes,” sputtered Lena, clearly taken aback by this action. Kara leaned back in her chair, grabbed the water bottle and drank down the reminder. There was a thick silence between them now, especially deafening after all the laughing just moments ago. Then the loud speaker announced that there was five minutes until the showing of the next IMAX movie.

“That’s our cue,” said Kara

Chapter Text

The loud speaker announced that there was five minutes until the showing of the next IMAX movie. “That’s our cue,” said Kara, who stood up quickly and bussed the table, wiping crumbs. Lena grabbed the used napkins and now empty water bottle and placed it in a nearby recycle container. Both seem glad to have something to do instead of look at each other. They made their way down to the box office and Kara produced the two tickets and they went inside to the darkened theatre.

Kara led Lena to the top of the theater, and to their row, which remained empty of anyone else. They found their seats, exactly in the middle of the row, with a great view of the wide and tall screen before them. Both sat down and the lights dimmed and a trailer for a coming educational movie played. Lena placed both arms on the arm rests on either side of her and now Kara placed hers on the shared arm rest, their forearms touching, and leaned in towards Lena. Lena felt a jolt of electricity, with the hairs on both arms standing up. She kept her eyes straight ahead, not sure what was happening. Kara leaned in very close to the side of Lena’s head. Lena felt like she was on fire. Kara’s lips were now very close to her ear. She whispered, “I wish we had some popcorn.”

Lena felt relieved and oddly disappointed at the same time. Kara straightened back up in her seat, adopting Lena’s pose of staring straight ahead at the screen, but kept her arm on the shared armrest. Lena took her eyes off the screen and leaned in towards Kara, although not nearly as close as Kara had just done and whispered back, “But you just ate.”

Lena turned her attention back towards the screen and Kara leaned in again towards her, although not as close as before, taking her cue from Lena, and whispered back, “That’s never stopped me before.” Lena chuckled appreciatively, and put both of her hands in her lap. Both women settled into their seats to watch the movie.

The screen now showed scenes from deep underwater, with a lot of footage from several submersibles. While visually arresting, Kara scarcely paid attention. Some of the creatures live so deep down, intoned the narrator, that few people had ever laid eyes on them…. Until now. Normally she would have been fascinated, but about eight months ago, the European Union had reached out to the DEO and asked to borrow her alter-ego, Supergirl, for a special project. There was a transatlantic cable that ran for 3,400 miles between the US and Europe that carried most of the phone and internet traffic between the two regions. It seems there was a leak in the cable and it was disrupting the transmissions, yet the internet provider wasn’t sure where the leak was, and the cable was lying on the ocean floor, in some of the deepest places on earth. It would take weeks for robot submarines to inspect the cable and detect the leak. So they reached out to the DEO to ask if Supergirl would quickly inspect the cable.

They had done their homework and knew that while Supergirl could not breathe underwater, she could hold her breath for a really, really long time, and was impervious to the crushing pressure of the atmosphere in water that deep. She could go up and back to the ocean floor without worrying about getting the bends like must Earth people would, and could do it quickly, practically flying though the water. So they asked if she would do the inspection for them. She agreed readily. While inspecting the cable, she saw most of the strange creatures depicting on the screen. She even got into a fight with a giant squid, although she did her best not to hurt it. She found the leak at mile 1,862.

Since she was not paying close attention to the screen, her mind was free to wonder, and Kara kept sneaking peeks at Lena’s profile, lit by the screen light. She was so amazing, she thought. So smart, so interesting, and drop dead gorgeous to look at, her brain teased. Stop it Kara, she chided herself. She wasn’t sure if Lena was interested in her in that way. Heck, she wasn’t even sure if she was into girls. She had dropped that reference to having a crush on a girl and it had elicited no reaction on Lena’s part. However, she found Lena so fascinating, she definitely wanted her in her life, even if it meant the friend zone.

All too soon the movie was over and Kara had to remind herself to stop staring at Lena.

“That was really interesting,” said Lena, as they made their way down the aisle and then down the stairs of the theatre. “I never knew about half of those creatures that lived so deep down under the ocean.”

“Yes, you never know what you are going to find down there,” answered Kara, innocently. They left the theatre and took the stairs to the first floor.

They came out by an exhibit on magnets and wandered through it, commenting on this or that. Lena started talking about an experiment she had done using reverse polarity of magnets and Kara asked, “I thought you were a business major?”

“I am,” answered Lena, “My undergrad degrees are in engineering and robotics, with a masters in chemistry, and I am getting a dual master’s degree in business and physics.”

“Wow,” answered Kara, “that’s impressive, but they are all so… unrelated, especially the business and physics degrees, and studying both at the same time. Tell me more about why you are studying two very different things.”

“Well, it’s rather a long story, and not that interesting, truth be told,” said Lena modestly. She, as a rule, did not like revealing much about herself, again a self-preservation habit she had developed from being around her adopted mother.

“Then tell me about some of the experiments you are working on,” said Kara as she walked around the exhibit, not looking at Lena. She seemed to sense Lena did not like the spotlight turned on her.

To Lena’s surprise, she briefly described some of her more interesting experiments, and then started to expand upon her most recent experiment for her thesis, and the fact that she was stuck and needed a breakthrough. She hadn’t admitted that to anyone, not even her professor. She needed to grow Nano tech crystals to power her nanobots and when she did, the crystals would grow unevenly, making them useless as power sources. She needed them to be uniform in shape so she could interchange them like batteries, she explained to Kara.

Kara, who was walking around an exhibit of steel balls held in place by magnetic force, absently said, “Too bad you can’t grow them in space. The absence of gravity would probably allow the crystals to grow in a more uniform pattern.” Kara read about the experiment in front of her and then wandered on.  She stopped when she realized Lena was nowhere near her. She turned around and Lena was still in the same spot, starting at her.

Kara quickly strode back to Lena, “Lena are you okay…”

“What did you just say?” asked Lena, still staring at her.

“I say a lot of things. You’ll have to be more specific,” Kara joked, not understanding Lena’s intensity.

“About gravity…” Lena’s voice trailed off.

“Oh. Just that the lack of gravity in space, or a vacuum would allow….”

“The crystals to grow more uniformly,” Lena finished her sentence for her. “Kara you’re a genius!” Lena gave Kara a genuine, unguarded smile. “I have to write this down,” she said excitedly. “Is there somewhere quiet we can go?” She asked as she looked questioningly at Kara.

“Ah, sure, I think I know just the place. Follow me.” Kara led Lena out of the exhibit and into the atrium where they had first entered the Museum and started to cross the wide expanse.

“Hold on,” said Lena. She doubled back to the ticket desk and walked up to the counter. The ticket counter was high enough that Lena can rest her elbows on it and look down at the attendant in her chair sitting at a computer. ”Excuse me,” said Lena to the attendant, “but what time is the next IMAX movie? I thought it was at 5 PM but your board there says 6 PM.” Lena made sure to point at the board behind the attendant. The attendant twisted in her chair in order to see where Lena was pointing. That was Lena’s plan all along. While the attendant’s back was turned, she reached down from the counter and grabbed a pen from several stacked in a cup holder, and then whisked it down to her side, out of view from the attendant.

“No, you’re reading the hours of the Museum, that board over there has the times of the IMAX movies, and there is one at 5 PM.” The attendant had turned around now and gave Lena a smile.

“Oh, I see now, yes, thank you for straightening me out,” said Lena politely.

“No problem. Was there anything else?” asked the attendant.

“No, thank you, you were very helpful,” said Lena as she turned and walked away, now transferring her hand in front of her so the attendant could not see the purloined pen.

“This way,” indicated Kara, catching up to Lena’s side. “And if you wanted a pen, you could have just asked for it. I am sure she would have given you one,” she said disapprovingly.

“I find it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission,” said Lena, quoting computer genius Grace Hopper. Kara was still bothered by it, though. She led Lena to a smaller set of stairs off the beaten path and down to the basement level, past bathrooms and a drinking fountain and a small ticket counter that had a sign that said, “Please buy your tickets upstairs.”

“This is the basement entrance,” said Kara. “Not many people know about it or use it anymore, so they just send people up to the main ticket counter.”

Kara opened the door to the outside and led Lena into a darkened alcove that had a large entrance about the size of a double garage door opposite the door they had just exited. In the middle of the alcove was a steel and glass enclosed structure about two stories tall. Kara pointed to a bench on the same side as the door and then walked towards the glass structure. “You can sit here,” said Kara, turning back towards Lena, “And I’ll be right over there,” tilting her head at the structure. “Take as long as you need.”

“Thanks,” said Lena hurriedly. She sat and pulled out a small cloth-bound notebook from her back pocket and opened it and started to write with the ill-gotten pen. Kara walked all the way over to the structure and stood in front of it. This is one of her favorite exhibits. Since the basement entrance wasn’t used as much, not many people saw this anymore and it was a shame.

The structure inside the glass enclosure was constructed of steel tracks that were just the right size to convey colorful billiard balls up and down and around the contraption. The balls started at the bottom of the track and are lifted to the top by steel ball holders on a chain that brought them to the top of the steel structure and then the chain rotated back down again to pick up more balls like a perpetual motion machine.

When the balls got to the top, one by one, gravity would make them start to roll down the track. After rolling for a few feet, that is where it got interesting. There was a switch and depending on where the last ball had gone, the switch alternated between two tracks. And if a ball went down track A instead of track B, farther down that track there was another switch that took it to track C or D. If the ball rolled down track B, after following that track for a while, the ball would meet a different switch that could lead it to track E or F. So the balls took varying routes down the contraption. On each segment of track, there were jumps, curves, loops, and balancing sections that take the ball’s weight and send it in another direction. In some places a ball would be held up in a wicket until another ball smacked into it, freeing it up and causing the second ball to be stuck in its place until another ball came to free it. It was fun to track all the things going on, or follow one ball all the way down the track and see all the twists and turns it would make. When a ball finally made its way to the bottom, gravity would make it wind down to the start and then it is lifted up again by the chain to start all over in a total random way from how it had traveled before.

Kara watched the balls move and balance, spin and rotate. Her Super hearing can hear Lena’s heart racing. She stopped herself. It was kind of like eavesdropping, she thought, and was a little like an invasion of Lena’s privacy. She turned her attention back to the balls. Then, after a while she could hear the pen scratching against paper and heard Lena’s heart rate slow considerable. Good. She must have written down what she needed and was now sketching a design or something, Kara surmised, listening to the rhythmic pen strokes on paper. And I should stop listening to her heart beating, she chided herself.

Lena had written down her thoughts and formulas in a furious burst, she so wanted to get this sudden brainstorm out of her head and onto paper. When she finished the second formula, she took a breath and let her mind flow for a bit. Absentmindedly, she realized she had started sketching in her notebook. Sketching was something that helped her think, it was something to do with her hands and if she concentrated on drawing, ideas came to her more readily then if she thought about the problem directly.

But as she looked down and realized she had sketched Kara, as if her hands had a mind of their own. Kara, who was so patiently staring at the glass exhibit, thought Lena. Kara was surrounded by the dimness of the alcove, her face lit up from within by the lighting inside the glass. In the drawing, she had captured Kara in darkness except for her head and torso in the light and it looked like Kara was reflecting a bright light. Lena chided herself. Here was this girl patiently waiting for her to come out of her science coma. How rude she was being, she thought to herself. And why did she sketch Kara to look like an angel or something? She closed her notebook and walked towards Kara.

Kara could hear Lena’s footsteps come toward her but didn’t want to give away that she could hear her, that she had been listening to her heart beat, to her breathe. She waited until Lena drew even to her and turned and said in a friendly voice, “Did you get down what you needed?”

“Yes I did. Thank you for giving me that time alone. I’m sorry if it was rude,” said Lena. “Sometimes when I get an idea all time stops and I have to get it down on paper to make sure I can grasp it later.  So, what are we looking at?” she shifted the conversation. “Oh, billiard balls!” Lena nodded towards the steel rails inside the enclosure.

“Aw, so you recognized the billiard balls. This is one of my favorite exhibits, the inscription on that back wall says it’s like a Rube Goldberg machine come to life, and after I looked up what that meant, I agreed.” said Kara, turning slightly towards Lena. “Uh, let me guess, you know who Rube Goldberg is.”

“I used to love to study Rube Goldberg’s drawings of contraptions when I was a kid,” admitted Lena, smiling shyly.

“So you know who he is and how creative his drawings of inventions were?” asked Kara. “Of course you do. In this exhibit, I love to pick a ball, like that orange one there right at the top and see which track it is going to take to get down. Depending on gravity or the ball before it that influences which way some of the switches will be set, the ball follows the distinct track, spinning and jumping its way down,” explained Kara as the orange ball did indeed spin and jump down the steel tracks. “This is my favorite part…” she gushed.

The orange ball entered a large loop-de-loop about four feet wide, right in front of Kara and Lena. Lena was slightly surprised by the speed. The ball went around the inside track loop flawlessly and then the track angled up and abruptly ended, causing the ball to fly through the air. Lena was taken aback at the quick action and then in the next heartbeat, the ball landed safely in a large cone designed at just the right distance to catch it. As the cone narrowed like a funnel, the ball moved down the cone to be deposited on a track that led it back to the beginning spot and the chain escalator brought it back to the top.

“Wow, that is impressive how the track uses centrifugal force to keep the ball in place in the loop,” said Lena.

“Now you sound just like my sister again.” Said Kara. “The first time I saw a ball go through this loop and fly through the air I clapped and said it was magic. Alex said it was science, and that the ball would always stay on the track and always land in the basket because the creator had measured and taken in to account gravity and force and speed and time and blah, blah, blah. And then I pointed to those balls in the corner and said what about them?” Kara nodded with her chin at the corner of the installation and indeed there were three billiard balls that had jumped the track and fallen away from the perpetual machine. “Your science failed them, I said to her. And then Alex got mad at me and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day.” She meant to end the story on a positive note, but she sounded wistful as she said the last part.

There was a pause in the conversation as both women watched the balls move and swing through the installation. Then Kara turned towards Lena and Lena turned towards Kara and they both spoke at the same time.

“Hey, do you want to grab some dinner….?” said Kara.

“It’s getting late, I should go….” said Lena.

As Kara turned towards Lena, she accidently knocked the notebook out of Lena’s moving hand. It landed on the ground between them and opened to the sketch of Kara. Lena was horrified. Before she could react, however, Kara had bent down and retrieved the notebook in both hands, looking at the sketch.

“Wow, is that me?” she asked. “It’s really good. I didn’t know you could draw, Lena.”

“I don’t… usually show… anyone my drawings, “ she said between closed lips and clenched teeth, grabbing at the notebook in the middle and tugged it harder than needed out of Kara’s hands, a gesture not unnoticed by Kara.

“I was just saying, it’s getting late, I should go,” said Lena as she brushed past Kara towards the large entrance to the street. Kara resisted the impulse to grab her arm and stop her after witnessing her anger at picking up her notebook. “Are you sure you have to go so soon. Traffic will be bad now that it’s rush hour and there is a little place I know with great food right up the block…” Kara offered as she walked after Lena.

Lena now turned around to look at Kara as she still continued to make her way to the opening, walking backwards. Kara followed her out. “No, no, I’ve taken up enough of your time today, I really should be going…” explained Lena.

“Well, a girl’s gotta eat, and it is dinner time…” said Kara. Lena had made her way to the street, still back pedaling, and Kara was matching her step for step. “And oh, hey, I almost forgot, I have a coupon,” said Kara as she fished a piece of paper out of her back pocket, unfolded it and flashed it at Lena before folding it back up and stuffing it back inside her pocket. “And the restaurant is Italian, and I know that’s your favorite…”

“No, I couldn’t possible put you out…” Lena stopped back pedaling. Kara stopped too, about seven feet away. It was an odd distance, not really close enough for two people to be chatting comfortably, but Kara saw the look on Lena’s face and didn’t dare take a step farther.

“What did you just say?” said Lena, her face a mask of cold fury.

“I… I” began Kara, but she was at a loss as to what she said to upset Lena so.

“You said, ‘I know Italian is your favorite.’ How did you know that? Unless… you’ve been stalking me!” Lena suddenly accused. “Admit it, you’ve been stalking me!” Lena said vehemently, raising her voice.

“What? No. No… I…” sputtered Kara.

Lena overrode her. “Yes you have, you stalked me. That’s why you knew so much about me.”

“No… I just… talked to a few of your classmates,” Kara tried to sooth.

“Talked to a few of my classmates,” spat out Lena. Somehow this information only served to make Lena more furious, Kara noted bleakly. “Talked to a few of my classmates, talked to a few of my classmates…” Lena paused, then seeming to gather her wits, said, “Tell me, did the nicer ones tell you what a geek I am, a nerd. That I always book the physics lab on Friday night because I won’t have a date? Or don’t have any friends who want to spend time with me?”

“Lena, it wasn’t anything like that….” Kara tried to interject.

“Is that why you had me meet you here, at a science museum?” Lena continued. “Because my classmates said I have no other interests, no other life, besides geeking out and thinking about math formulas and periodic tables? Tell me, did the bitchier ones gleefully tell you how I never talk to anyone because ‘I’m too good, too wealthy’ to mix with the hoi poi?’

Did she just say, holy poly, thought Kara?

“Or did you talk to the girls who say the opposite, that I am slut, that I go after their boyfriends? That I put them under some sort of spell?” said Lena acidly. “What about the classmates that said I am so stuck up I don’t bother to make small talk? That… that accuse me of being so cold, so distant because I never accept their superficial invitations to hang out? Did you spy me from the bushes of the business school when I walk by and all of my ‘classmates” talk behind their hands about me, whispering at a furious pace? Oh, oh, did you get to the part where they say I am just a spoiled little rich girl whose Mommy bought her way in to the business school program? That no matter how hard I work, they think special favors were given and I don’t deserve the praise and accolades I get. And whose infamous last name opens all sorts of doors for me I have no right to walk though, and that all my money probably buys my grades as well?”

“Lena…” Kara tried again.

“Uhh,” said Lena, drawing a sharp intake of breath. “Is that why you made that suggestion about my experiment? Were you talking to Professor Stevens? Did he tell you to make that comment about gravity?”

“Um, no, I don’t know any Professor Stev…”

“Well you can just tell Professor Stevens that he is not getting his name on my patent as co-creator just because he sent some…” and here Lena faltered, her anger suddenly affecting her ability to think rationally, “Some… some Chippy…” she fiercely gestured at Kara.

Chippy, though Kara?

Even Lena seemed surprised by her choice of words, but soldiered on, “Yes… some Chippy to stalk me….”

“I DID NOT STALK YOU!” Kara shouted out, her face a twist of angry red. And it made Lena visibly lean her head back at Kara’s vehemence. “And if I did, it was because you told me to.” Maybe it was Lena not letting her explain herself. Maybe it was the use of the word Chippy, but Kara had had enough of Lena’s misplaced anger directed at her.

“All I know is that I saw a cute girl with incredible green eyes in a coffee shop and that I wanted to see her again but she ran away before I could get her phone number or last name, or even give her mine, and when I asked the coffee server who you were and found out you were THE Lena Luther, I instantly googled you. And as any good journalism student knows, what you find in the media and on the internet only tells a partial story, so I used my investigative journalism skills to ask your friends and colleagues about you. And Lena,” Kara continued, since Lena was still in shock from Kara yelling at her, “They were nothing but kind and respectful. Some of the girls did say they wished you talked more to them or reached out to them so they could get to know you better because you seemed like such an interesting person. And I did talk to Emerson Remington ‘the third’ and he is the one who said you dated a few times and that you liked Italian food. And then you accepted my invitation to come here and you were so smart and so interesting and I was really enjoying being with you. I don’t even know if you like girls like I do, but you are just so amazing, I definitely want you in my life.” Kara’s voice gentled, “And your professor didn’t talk to me or anything, I just really, really like outer space, that’s why I made that suggestion about gravity. And I would really like to take you to dinner.”

She paused and took a breath, took a step towards Lena to somewhat close the distance between them, and then said, “and besides, if you’re such a ‘girl genius’ as the media says, you should have picked up on the fact I know exactly where everything was in the Tech Museum, knew exactly which floors to go to, how to find my way about, and even the quiet place so you could have downtime to think… I am very familiar with this place. This is the place I go to enjoy myself, usually with my sister, and that is why I wanted to share it with you, not because I think you are some big nerd. Or if you are, then I am too, and proud of it. And you’re lucky I even took you here because last time I was here, looking at the perpetual motion machine back there, my sister and I got in a fight…”

Kara’s voice had changed timbre, Lena noticed, and got more intimate. Now she felt like a jerk for accusing Kara of spying on her and having ulterior motives.

“And in the course of my investigative journalism, I discovered something you and I both have in common but no one ever mentions,” Kara said. “We’re both orphans. And I just thought we could share a meal and talk about what it was like experiencing that because I never get to talk about it with anyone, and see if you had the same experience, like…. like, everyone else is walking around with a big warm jacket and you’re not and although all your needs are taken care of, you have food and shelter, but you don’t have the warmth of the jacket hugging you like everybody else….”

Okay, now this conversation really has taken a bizarre turn, thought Lena. She stood absolutely still, not sure where to go next, when Kara suddenly turned away from Lena. Was… was Kara crying, Lena thought? It must have turned to dusk since they came out of the museum, and the street lights had just turned on. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw a glistening tear rolling down Kara’s cheek in profile, lit by the street lamp. Kara turned all the way around with her back to Lena and swiped at both eyes with the heel of her hand.

And in that moment, with Kara’s back to her, having both just shared an emotional outburst, naked and raw, Lena felt...

Utterly.
Hopelessly.
Completely.
Captivated. And that thought terrified her.

What? She mentally slapped herself. She is not captivated by this… this, wonderfully messy blonde waif. She barely knew her. What is wrong with you, Lena thought? Still, she was not a Luther, or Luther in training, for nothing. She would be damned if she would ever let Kara see her true feelings for her. So with Kara’s back to her, she fixed her face in the Luther mask that she wore most hours of the day, the one that let no one in, and no emotion out.

Except… Kara didn’t turn back around. She turned partially and called over her shoulder to Lena, “You were right, it’s getting late, I should go,” in a small voice.

And Lena know she could not let this girl get away. “Well,” she drawled out, “As you said, ‘a girl’s gotta eat.’” Lena saw the small semblance of a smile play across Kara’s lips in her half-turned face.

“And you did say there is a little place right around the corner…” she continued. This time Kara mostly turned around to Lena, almost completing a full circle.

“And Italian IS my favorite.” Always make them chase you, said Lena’s adopted mother, and that is one piece of advice that has served her well, and she hoped it would continue now. “And you do have a coupon…” she said as she turned the opposite direction as Kara. “Even though it’s from Bed, Bath and Beyond…” she called over her shoulder as she turned around all the way and started walking. She hoped this would work.

She needn’t have worried. Kara was at her side so fast it was as if she flew there.

Chapter Text

“Oh, you noticed that about the coupon, huh?” Kara said, bumping Lena playfully with her shoulder. Lena, not expecting the contact, stumbled. Kara put her hands out, but she saw Lena righted herself and withdrew them. She seemed to instinctually sense that Lena she did not like unexpected physical contact.

They walked side by side down the street in an awkward silence.

“Danvers. My last name is Danvers,” said Kara, “in case you want to Google me, not that you would find much.” Superheroes had to keep a low social media profile.

“Good to know,” said Lena. After a beat, she said, “Kara, I’m sorry.” Kara was ready to say it was okay, all good, but for once, using every last ounce of mental fortitude, she stayed silent to let Lena talk. “I got freaked out when you saw my sketch of you,” she continued, “and then when I realized you knew insider information of me, I took it out on you. It’s… It’s hard for me to trust people, due to my upbringing, and the baggage my last name carries, and I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge.”

“And I’m sorry too,” said Kara, looking straight ahead, Lena noticed as she glanced at her. “I got way too personal and I just hope I didn’t scare you away.”

“No, that’s okay…” Lena said, the words trailing off. She was going to say she liked it, but that would be too much of a reveal. They were silent for a few steps. And then Lena said, “And for the record, I like girls, too.” Lena felt Kara’s height grow about two inches, and when she glanced over, Kara was trying and failing to hide a smile.

Lena looked straight ahead again and after a few more steps said, “Are we even going the right way to the restaurant?”

“Oh, yeah we are,” said Kara. She was silent for a few more beats and then said, “Too bad this isn’t a date.”

“Oh really, why is that?” said Lena.

“Because if this were a date,” said Kara, “and if my date looked like you, and I was walking with her on such a beautiful evening as the sky turned dark, I would do this.” Kara held out her elbow between them, her arm bent like a backward letter L.

“And what would your date do?” asked Lena, playing along, “If she was also enjoying the fresh air and beautiful sky, and the company?”

“Well, she would link her arm in mine,” answered Kara.

“Like this?” asked Lena, taking her left arm from below and wrapping it around Kara’s right arm, linking their elbows.

“Exactly!” said Kara.

“But we’re not on a date,” countered Lena.

Kara pulled her elbow tightly, drawing Lena to her side so their arms and shoulders were touching as they walked.

“True, but you, Lena Luther, are a flight risk,” Kara laughed, “And I’m not letting you go.”

Promise, thought Lena, who just in the nick of time stopped herself from saying it out loud. Get ahold of yourself, Lena chastised. They crossed the street to the next block.

“So you talked to ol’ Emery Remington, did ya?” said Lena, to keep the conversation going.

“The third,” Kara corrected, “and yes I did.”

“What did you think of him?” asked Lena.

“Well, at first he carried himself like such a rich, frat boy stereotype I thought he was putting on an act. Then after sitting down with him over a cup of coffee and asking about you, he showed a deeper awareness. He said your rich mommies set you up to keep all that money in the family…”

“That sounds typical of him,” commented Lena.

“Yeah, but then he said after the second date he realized you were way out of his league, intellectual-wise. He thought your first date was fun and then he realized because he talked all about himself the whole time and every time he asked you a question you were vague and turned the attention back to him. So he made more of an effort to get to know you the second time around and that was when he realized how smart you were. ‘You were going places,’ he said, and your mind was on another level, full of ideas and you had things you wanted to accomplish. And then he realized you would never be happy or even complacent with such a shallow guy like him, who likes to sit on the couch and drink beer and watch awful reality TV shows.”

“He said that? Wow, he really was paying attention when I talked. I misjudged him,” said Lena.

“Well, hold your judgment. He then said he wanted to find some petite little cheerleader with a smokin’ hot body who didn’t have a thought in her pretty little head.”

“That pig!” laughed Lena.

“And then he said he wanted a women who needed him, and his money, and you didn’t need him, or any man, or even care about the size of his bank account. And that you needed a partner that was your equal, who could challenge you, and he would never be able to offer you anything to help you grow as a person,” Kara finished.

“Wow, insightful and still a little creepy. Maybe Emery is deeper than I thought,” said Lena.

“Hey, I was just trying to tell you how I knew Italian was your favorite restaurant, not be a wing man for him to get another date with you,” said Kara. “Turn here.” Kara veered to the left at the corner and stopped to press the walk button. She didn’t let go of Lena’s arm, and Lena was secretly relieved.

The light changed and they crossed the street into the historical part of town and approached a charming old building a few doors away from the corner. As they came to face to face to the restaurant, Lena could tell that it used to be a dress shop or clothing store of some sort. The door was flanked by two large bay windows that housed raised platforms where the shop must have displayed their mannequins.

Kara held the door open and gestured for Lena to procedure her. Inside, the place smelled divine. A warm light bathed over red checkered tablecloths on either side of the door.

“Kara!” called a deep alto voice behind the tall counter. Out stepped a large man straight out of central casting for what an Italian restaurant owner would look like. He wore a large white t-shirt and white trousers with an apron stained with brown spots over his big pot belly. Dark curly hair peeked out from a white chef’s hat and a mustache sat below two warm brown eyes.

“Ah, there you are, it’s been too long,” said the man Lena presumed was the chef. He moved deftly around the counter and enveloped Kara in a big bear hug, and then kissed her noisily on both cheeks.

“Alberto,” said Kara, “So good to see you, too.” Kara held his arms with genuine affection after he had kissed her. “Oh, I wanted to introduce you to Lena…..” she hesitated at saying her last name and instead stated, “She’s a fellow attendee at National City University.”

”Ah, so lovely,” said Alberto, as he moved forward towards Lena. Kara, reading the situation, put her hand between Alberto and Lena and said, “Uh, Alberto, you probably don’t want to hug Lena, she’s just getting over a cold.”

“Huh,” said Alberto, looking sideways at Kara. “A cold, huh?” I’ll just shake your hand then.” He grabbed Lena’s delicate hand in his two meaty paws and pumped her arm as if he was trying to get water out of a well. It’s a good thing I don’t really have a cold, then, thought Lena, who appreciated Kara trying to run interference from a big bear hug and messy kisses from Alberto.

Alberto finally dropped her hand. “Any friend of Kara’s is a friend of mine. Let me show you to your table.” Alberto nimbly wove his way through the chairs and tables and Kara gestured for Lena to follow. As Alberto came to the bay window with the raised platform, he swept his hand, “Here we are,” he said. Lena looked at the raised dais. If they sat there, they would practically be on display for anyone walking by on the street, she thought uneasily.

Kara, as if reading her mind, stepped in front of her and said in a low voice, “Uh, Alberto, would you mind if we sat somewhere else? Somewhere closer to the back?”

“What?” said Alberto, “This is the best table in the house!”

“Yes, but everyone can watch us eat, and I am not the prettiest when eating,” Kara tried to joke, looking back at Lena to gauge her reaction.

“Nonsense,” continued Alberto, “Everyone will see you two bellissimo young things and then want to come to Alberto’s to eat, to be near such pretty girls in the window. And it’s nice and cozy. Oh, you brought your coupon, right? For your special night?” and here Alberto winked none too slyly at Kara. He shouldn’t play poker, either, thought Lena, he can’t keep his emotions off of his face. And then suddenly she got it. Kara had been here earlier today and arranged this whole dinner, with a special table and the fake coupon. Just as she arranged the trip to the Museum.

She looked at Alberto, who had an expectant look on his face, and gestured again to the table in the window and Lena said, “You know what Kara, I think this table is perfect. Alberto is right, this will be cozy.” She stepped past Kara and moved to the raised platform. Alberto, ever the gentlemen, held out his hand to Lena to help her step up onto the platform and then he pulled out her chair. She sat down and Alberto moved the chair in perfect rhythm to scoot her towards the table, executing the practiced dance she had performed with countless waiters and maître des in restaurants all over the world. Alberto deftly removed her cloth napkin from the table and shook it out and settled it in Lena’s lap in one smooth motion. Lena looked up at the big man and thanked him. Then both Alberto and Lena looked over at Kara who had plunked down on the chair opposite her without pulling it towards the table, knees akimbo, and who had just broken a crunchy bread stick over her plate, sending crumbs flying everywhere.

“Ahem,” said Alberto, moving down off the platform and over to Kara to take out her napkin from beside her plate. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice, “I was hungry.” He shook out the napkin a little too crisply, wiped most of the crumbs on the tablecloth into a cupped hand and placed the crumbs in his apron pocket, and then placed the napkin in Kara’s lap. He then helped move her chair so Kara was sitting more closely and properly at the table. “Better, he said to himself. He then took out the wine list sitting in the middle of the table and handed it to Lena. “Would the ladies care for some wine with dinner?” he asked. Lena took the proffered list and asked, “What do you recommend, Alberto?”

“Well, not knowing what you are going to order for dinner, I like a nice Chianti,” he said, stabbing a big beefy finger at the menu. “That’s a lovely suggestion,” said Lena. “Why don’t you bring us a bottle of the, um, Castello di Ama 2017 Chianti Classico. Kara, does that sound okay with you? You’ll have some, right?”

Kara nodded her head yes, still munching on her bread stick. “Wonderful choice.” Said Alberto as he excused himself to fetch the bottle.

Lena leaned forward and said, “And I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” Kara laughed appreciatively. “Did… did you just quote Hannibal Lector from ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ the all-time best Jodi Foster movie?”

“I did indeed,” said Lena with a wide smile.

“I knew I liked you for some reason,” countered Kara. Alberto arrived just in time to decant the Chianti and pour it in two wine glasses, saving Lena from being discovered blushing for the third time today. He handed them two large menus and left them free to peruse them. “So what’s good here?” asked Lena.

“Well, I wouldn’t be lying if I said everything, but my two favorites are the seven-layer lasagna and the lemon cream pasta Alfredo, it’s to die for!” said Kara.

“Well, why don’t I get the lasagna and you get the lemon cream pasta and we can share. How does that sound?” asked Lena.

“Deal,” said Kara. Alberto came by just then to take their order. He commented, “Excellent, excellent” after everything they ordered. “Oh, and please add the antipasto salad for two,” said Kara to Alberto.

“Kara, that salad has salami, pepperoni, olives, provolone cheese….,” said Lena, scanning that item on the menu, “That is a lot of food on top of our entrees. I don’t think I can eat that much,” pointed out Lena.

“Relax, you’re with me,” said Kara. “I promise to take up the slack and eat any portion you can’t. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Lena, echoing Kara’s earlier reply. Kara beamed at her. Alberto collected the menu and left them alone.

Lena leaned forward with her arms on the table and said, “All right, Danvers, spill it, tell me how you ‘investigated’ me?”

“Well,” said Kara, leaning forward and adopting the same pose as Lena, “After I found out who you were from the coffee barista, I went home Monday night and spent numerous hours on the internet and not on my homework, and formulated a plan for more up close and personal research. Then Tuesday morning I visited one Jeremy Jackson in the student affairs office and flirted with him until I got your class schedule, and I am really BAD at flirting.”

Lena would have protested about the quality of her flirting, but didn’t want to interrupt the story.

“And the poor guy might have been led to believe that we might go out on a date sometime in the future.”

Both women chuckled. “I am a little bit ashamed of that part,” said Kara, taking another bite of bread stick to cover her embarrassment. “So, after I got your schedule,” Kara continued, “I tried to get to all your classes early to talk to your classmates. You almost saw me at the business school early on, but I ducked around the corner.” Lena mentally figured out that must have happened with the one class she did attend that day.

Kara neglected to mention that she used her super speed to get around said corner. “But it took all day, including having coffee with Emery in some fancy pants restaurant he made me drive all the way out to meet him that I ended up skipping all my Tuesday classes.”

“Ohhhh, so that’s why you never made it to the coffee house Tuesday…” said Lena almost to herself.

“What was that?” said Kara.

“Oh, um,” and now it was Lena’s turn to be embarrassed. She picked up her wine glass and took a sip. “Well, I’m a little ashamed to admit this, too, but I thought you knew who I was right away, and that you would hit me up on the campus messaging system that night, and when you didn’t, and I didn’t know your last name because you never gave it to me,” here Lena glared pointedly at Kara, “ And I remembered you said you usually came to the Campus Coffee House on Tuesdays, so after my first class, I blew off the rest of them and hung out there hoping to catch you….” She trailed off.

Kara secretly was pleased Lena had blown off classes to try and find her. “Wow, it’s like the O’Henry story, ‘The Gift off the Magi’ come to life, where each tries to make the other happy by forgoing what they love.”

Before Lena could answer, Alberto weaved through the now-crowded restaurant and approached their table with a wide platter of antipasto salad and placed it in the middle of the table. He then took a lighter out of his apron pocket and lit the candle on the table. “Enjoy,” he said, with a big smile, turning back to the kitchen.

“Wow, this looks delicious,” said Lena, plucking an olive and popping it in her mouth. They both nibbled at the edges of the salad and then Lena said, “Okay, you asked me what it was like to be an orphan….”

“I did,” said Kara around a hunk of salami. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the glow of the candle, maybe it was being at this table on a raised platform that gave them privacy from the other diners with the glass reflecting themselves back that felt so intimate, that Lena felt the need to talk about her past, something she had never, ever done before, with anyone.

“Wait!” She suddenly was hit with a thought, “This is totally off the record, right? Won’t appear in your story about campus students?” asked Lena.

“Totally,” said Kara.

“Anyway, my Mom died when I was four and unfortunately I don’t really remember her. I guess my birth father wasn’t in the picture, so I was adopted into the Luther household and some of my first memories are of Lillian, my adoptive Mom, telling me to get off of the furniture and to not walk on the Persian rugs. It was clear my new adopted mother didn’t really want me, that it had been my adopted father’s idea to bring me into the Luther household. And when he died a few years later, she got really mean to me. But Lex was a good big brother to me, and tried to shield me from some of her wrath,” said Lena. “Are you sure this is off the record?” suddenly nervous about revealing this part of her life.

“Yes, this is so far off the record because there never was a record in the first place. I made up the story idea to try to get to see you again,” she said as she buried her head in some delicious mozzarella cheese.

Well okay, thought Lena. “Lex was a genius beyond belief,” she continued, “as I am sure you are aware, but he always encouraged my talents, and sometimes let me tag along on his adventures. One year for Christmas he received a chemistry set and promptly gave it to me, saying he had no interest, but I think he just knew how much I wanted one. In fact it was his idea to send me to an all-girls boarding school in Switzerland for high school when I turned 16, something that would change my life.”

“Did you like going to boarding school?” asked Kara, chewing some pepperoni, and personally thinking it would be hard to leave your family and go overseas during your teenage years.

“Well, it accomplished two things. It got me out of the house and away from my non-supportive adopted mother and it gave me the foundation for my future education. See, Lex didn’t just pick out any old boarding school. He picked out the most prestigious and academically rigorous, not to mention the most expensive, school he could find. It allowed the students to build their own curriculum and do a lot of independent study and design majors or areas of expertise as hard or as easy as they wanted, and prepared the girls for top-rated colleges.”

Lena paused to take a sip of wine and Kara refilled her glass. “The first semester I kinda hated it, what with being in a new and foreign place and all the girls around my age, who were incredibly wealthy and let you know it, had been attending for years and had formed impenetrable cliques. When Christmas Break came, Lillian ‘suggested’ I stay at school. And then I met Veronica. She came back a week early before the second semester started after missing the whole first semester traveling around with her parents. And, well, to make a long story short, I fell in love. And I mean I fell hard.”

“Was she your first?” asked Kara.

“Oh yeah, first everything. Your first is so intense, isn’t it?” asked Lena.

“Oh definitely,” said Kara, who was using her fork to scrap the last remnants of the antipasto salad unto her plate. 

“And it was fortuitous that Veronica knew most of the girls already and was always thought of as ‘cool’ so I was cool by association and the girls actually made an effort to be friendly with me. Life couldn’t have been better. I was taking a lot of hard but fun and interesting classes, learning so much, yet wanted to spend every waking hour with Veronica. She practically moved into my dorm room, and I did her homework so we would have more time together. It was wonderful, or so I thought at 16.”

Kara sensed a shift in the story.

“Then summer break came and Veronica went back to her parents in London and when Lillian said I should stay at school for the summer I decided to make the most of it. I designed a challenging engineering curriculum to get into college early and crammed a whole semester of college level classes in one summer in anticipation of seeing Veronica again. When she came back in the fall, well she wanted to be lazy and cut classes and I wanted to attend mine. We started having really bad fights about it. The final straw was when I stopped doing her homework because I didn’t have time and she got mad at me. It occurred to me that she had no ambition and was going to be content to live off her parent’s money the rest of her life, so I told her that” Lena said matter of factly.

“Ouch,” said Kara. “Let me guess, she didn’t take that well.”

“She dumped me so hard and so fast. Now school was unbearable. I was truly alone. The other girls wouldn’t even look at me, and every once in a while I would glimpse Veronica and my heart would skip a beat, but in a bad way. So I threw myself into my studies and at the end of my junior year of high school when I was 17, I applied for early admission to college at MIT, leaving that school in Switzerland, and Veronica behind. After three years in Boston I got two undergrad degrees from MIT, one in engineering and one in robotics. Then I applied to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to get a master’s in chemistry.”

“Where you got your first patent, making that early chemistry set pay off,” stated Kara.

“I see your Google research paid off. Yes, I did,” said Lena. “I was casually dating a pediatric nurse who worked at the local hospital and when I was waiting for her in the waiting room one day, a little girl, who had lost her arm up to her elbow was crying to her parents. It seemed they had just gotten a crude robotic arm made for her and now that she had grown it didn’t fit her comfortably any more. Her parents tried to explain that their insurance only paid for a new arm every two years and they had 18 months to go. My girlfriend came into the waiting room and seeing her young patient upset, went over to console her. I politely walked over and asked if I could see her arm. Her parents were a little freaked out but I explained I was a graduate student and had a degree in robotics and wanted to see if I could help. Luckily for me, our department had just purchased a 3-D printer and I could experiment with making her a new arm. I even turned it into my thesis project,” finished Lena.

“And that’s what you got the patent for, a robotic arm?” asked Kara.

“No, a robotic arm is pretty complicated and takes a large team to pull off. Robotic arms are expense to make. For an adult, that isn’t an issue, as they have stopped growing. But for young kids and teens, their body grows and shifts. Once a team designs a limb for them, if they grow, it doesn’t fit well anymore. So I designed a computer program where you input over 50 body measurements and the machine calculates to scale out the robotic arm to fit the newly grown body part where it is attached, and the 3-D printer makes it inexpensively. I sold it to the school and only took a 3% royalty every time it is sold to other hospitals,” finished Lena.

“Wow, that’s amazing Lena, your nurse girlfriend must have been really proud of you,” said Kara.

“Oh God, no,” said Lena, waving her hand, “We broke up shortly after I encountered the little girl. I threw myself into my project and she got mad I never had time for her. Story of my life.”

For some odd reason, Kara was relieved to hear this.

“Then after graduating with my masters in chemistry from Johns Hopkins in a year, I starting working at the Mayo Clinic,” continued Lena.

“Where you got patent number two,” said Kara around a breadstick.

“Right again, Ms. Google. I designed a way for nano robots to deliver chemo straight to the cancer cells and not destroy the good cells, like traditional chemo does. Then when the cancer cells are gone, they die off. This time I took 10% royalties,” said Lena, feeling the wine a bit.

“Anyone special there?” asked Kara innocently.

“No, I was too engrossed in my work. But I did discover an app that allowed me to have a series of one night stands, with both men and women, which cut out the romantic aspect of it and cut right to the chase. It saved a lot of time,” said Lena.

Kara thought that the romantic part was the best part but was saved for trying to come up with a reply by Alberto, who delivered their entrees and promptly left. Lena cut her lasagna in two and placed it on her bread plate and scooted it across the table to Kara. Kara took a large portion of her noodles and plunked them down on Lena’s plate. Lena had a taste of both. “Wow, you were right, Kara, these must be the two best dishes in the house because they are amazing.”

“Okay, but I am still puzzled by the dual degrees of Business and Physics here at National University,” said Kara around a mouthful of lemon cream pasta.

“Well,” said Lena, after a swallow of Chianti, “As your research shows, I testified against my brother, Lex, when he went insane and tried to kill Superman and almost killed all of humanity. After he got put away in jail, my adopted mother, Lillian, didn’t talk to me, and took over as defacto president of LexCorp, changing it back to LutherCorp. She liked the power and prestige of being president, but she is not one for the day to day details of running a company, so she strongly, strongly suggested I take over as CEO to keep it in the family and all would be forgiven. I really wasn’t too keen on it, so I said I should get a business degree first, paid for by LutherCorp, in National City, where the LutherCorp Headquarters were. And since I knew I could probably finish it in a year, I added a second major of physics, something I actually wanted to study to stretch it out to two years. And I graduate the end of this spring,” she finished.

“You know you don’t have to be CEO if you really don’t want to, Lena,” said Kara.

Lena smiled wistfully. “Things are never that simple,” she said, although Kara’s words stirred something deep inside of her. “But hey, my lasagna is getting cold and you are almost done with your noodles. I haven’t heard about you all night,” she pointed at Kara’s plate with her fork, dodging further scrutiny on her life choices.

“Well, at the risk of sounding really insensitive, when you said you don’t have any memories of your mother, I was envious…” she started, wiping her mouth on her cloth napkin. “See, I lost my mother when I was 13, and not a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of her. I just remember her so keenly. And I know they say time heals all wounds, but it never seems to get any easier for me when I remember everything about her,” she said.

“I am so sorry you lost your mother at that age, Kara. How did it happen? Or is that too painful to talk about?” asked Lena.

“No, it’s okay,” said Kara, “Our house caught fire when we were sleeping and we didn’t realize until it was too late. My mother woke me up in my bedroom on the second floor of our house and dragged me to the front bedroom window. She helped me out the window and dangled me over the ground and then dropped me, saying everything was going to be okay. I landed, unhurt and a firefighter rushed over and scooped me up and put me over his shoulder and started running away from the house. I screamed that he needed to save my mother, and placed my hand on his back and propped myself up to look up at the window and one minute I saw her face, framed in the window and the next the window exploded, along with the whole top floor of the house. Both my father and mother were killed in the explosion. I was the only survivor,” she half whispered.

Kara didn’t like lying to Lena about what really happened, but she couldn’t very well tell her the truth. She couldn’t say that she was an alien from outer space and that as her planet was getting ready to explode, her mother had bundled her into one of the last remaining rockets to follow after her cousin Kal-El to planet Earth, and that he would later become Superman. And she couldn’t say that as her rocket sped away, she watched as everyone she had ever loved die as her home planet exploded. At least those were truly her mother’s last words to her, and she really did miss her and think about her every day.

Kara didn’t realize she had stopped talking. Lena filled the silence by saying, “I’m so sorry Kara, that must have been awful.”

You don’t know the half if it, thought Kara. “Yes, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it was awful. I was in shock and I came to be adopted by the Danvers family. They already had a daughter, Alex who was two years older than me. At first she was resentful of me, but we eventually grew closer and had many amazing adventures together. You remind me of her a little bit. She also applied for early admission to college and get her undergraduate and doctor’s degree in record time. She is now bio-engineer and doctor for the FBI,” finished Kara. A small white lie, Alex actually worked for the alien hunting DEO, or the Department of Extranormal Operations, and assisted her as Supergirl. “She is a good big sister and was a great source of comfort growing up,” said Kara.

“I dated boys throughout high school because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do,” continued Kara, “And even went to prom with Robbie MacPherson. It wasn’t until my freshmen year of college that I met a girl, Chelsey, and well, the rest is history,” said Kara.

“Was she your first?” asked Lena, before taking a bite of her lasagna.

“Oh yeah,” said Kara, “and at first it was magical, and then it wasn’t. She was a year older than me, and I was still getting used to be on my own at my first year of college and wanted to get together with my friends and do dumb freshmen things. She wanted to spend every waking minute together, and I mean every minute. Sometimes I wanted to do things separately and she would ask why and then pout. And if I was late because I got to talking with friends over coffee and lost track of time, she would get mad. Or if I wanted to go out with friends without her she would get jealous or say she was hurt,” said Kara. She didn’t tell Lena that she was also getting used to being Supergirl and would sometimes have to leave her girlfriend or break a date to do Superhero stuff and then couldn’t tell her where she had been.

“The jealousy really wore me down. The final straw came when I told her I was going to have sister time with Alex on a Friday night. She got mad and didn’t talk to me for two days then suddenly showed up on my doorstep during the time Alex was there and just invited herself in and planted herself on the couch between us. I told her the next day that it was over. There was a lot of tears, mostly from me, and I asked if we could remain friends and she said sure.”

“And did you?” asked Lena, enjoying the tangy sauce of the lasagna.

“No, she never talked to me again, and I found out later she transferred to another college the next year,” finished Kara. “I didn’t really see anyone my sophomore year, instead concentrating on my classes (and Supergirl she omitted), and then my junior year I met Maddie. Maddie was a senior and a sculpture major. She had a great sense of touch and was very good with her hands, if you know what I mean,” said Kara suggestively.

“I know what you mean,” said Lena, smiling over her glass as she took a sip of wine.

“And then we kissed, and it was…just...awful,” said Kara. Lena, who was still taking a sip of wine, spit a mouthful back into her glass and started coughing. “Um, did you say what I thought you said?” sputtered Lena. She coughed some more.

“Are you okay?” asked Kara. “Don’t make me come over there and pound your back,” she joked.

“I’m okay,” said Lena, holding up one hand. With her other hand she wiped her mouth and then her eyes, as she had been coughing so hard tears had sprung up. “Okay, ahem, so, wow, I did not expect you to say that,” Lena finally said after she regained her composure.

“Right? I liked her so much, and she was so chill and opposite of Chelsey. She was a sculpture major, as I mentioned, and she had to put a lot of time in at the art studio, and sometimes she worked odd hours or late hours when it wasn’t as crowded. So if I told her I had other plans or something suddenly came up, she would say no problem and would usually go to the sculpture studio or something, happy whenever we saw each other next. And when we were together, she was very tactile and loved to be in contact, and she had an amazing sense of touch. Even if we were studying together or watching TV, she liked to always touch me, either by body contact or actively rubbing her hands on me, or rubbing a foot on my calf. But it was too bad she was a bad kisser. Or that we didn’t kiss well together, I should say,” said Kara.

“Yes, I can see how that would be hard to get past,” agreed Lena.

“So we broke up and this time we did remain friends, which was nice. I still enjoyed her company. She graduated last year and got an internship for a major sculpture artist on the East Coast and is in heaven. However, I will always be grateful for her because she taught me what I truly want out of a relationship. Well, both of my long term relationships did, although her affect was positive,” said Kara.

“Oh, what was that?” asked Lena, taking another sip of wine.

“Well, as I said, my first taught me that I want someone who is not so insecure that she is driven by jealousy and is open to growing together and apart. And the second taught me although we can be apart, when we are together, she was really ‘with’ me and gave me all of her attention. And that I appreciate someone with a good sense of touch and need that special someone to be a good kisser,” finished Kara.

Lena stared at Kara. Do I fill out all those boxes, thought Lena to herself? Then she mentally caught herself. Stop it, she admonished. She would never go for someone like you, her self-doubts sang out.

Chapter Text

Alberto magically appeared at Lena’s elbow, startling her out of her reverie about Kara. “I see you are all finished. Did you enjoy it?” he asked.

Lena looked down at her plate. Kara has taken the last few bites off of her plate to finish her lasagna when she wasn’t looking. When did that happen, she wondered? “Yes, very much so,” she told him. Alberto beamed.

“So, what will you two lovely ladies be having for desert?” he asked.

“Oh no, nothing for me, thanks. I’m stuffed,” answered Lena, patting her belly.

“The tiramisu is to die for,” answered Kara as if she hadn’t heard Lena.

“And today’s special is a cheese cake with blueberry compote. Which would you like?” asked Alberto, as he cleared their dishes. When he stepped back off of the dais, Lena caught Kara’s eye and they said at the same time, “Both!”

“Very good,” he answered and hurried away.

Lena looked at Kara in the glowing candle light. When did it get so dark in here, thought Lena? And when did I get so tipsy?

“So are you seeing anyone special now,” asked Kara.

“I’m not,” answered Lena, putting her elbows on the edge of table. “You?” she asked.

“No, no one special, or at all” answered Kara, also putting her elbows on the edge of the table. They were silent until Alberto came over with a tray and set down two small wine glasses. “Ah, Alberto, we didn’t order any more wine,” said Kara.

“I know,” answered Alberto, “This is just little dessert wine to go with your tiramisu and cheesecake. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, like you,” he winked at Kara. Lena picked up her glass and took a sip, just to be polite. It WAS sweet, but not too sweet, just as Alberto promised. And delicious. And she was surely drunk now. Did Kara not feel drunk like her? She seemed to have a hollow leg when it came to alcohol, Lena observed.

Alberto hurried back with the desserts and then left them in peace. Lena took her fork and had a bite of the tiramisu. “Oh, my God, you were right, this is delicious,” she said at Kara. Then she had a bite of the cheesecake, you know, just to be polite. And it also was delicious too, creamy but not overly sweet. And the blueberry compote, perfectly complimented the cheesecake, thought Lena.

They chatted lightly about classes, music and movies. It was fun to compare their similarities and differences. Kara realized that Lena had had a lot of wine. She felt badly because she had consumed the same amount as Lena, but since she was Supergirl, Kara Danvers didn’t feel the effects of Earth alcohol. She would have to make sure Lena got home okay.

After all the wine was drunk and dessert eaten. Alberto appeared with the bill. “Don’t forget your coupon,” said Alberto. Lena somehow thought through the haze of alcohol that she should pay, but Kara was quicker to reach for the check and placed her credit card down on the small tray and was sure to include the fake coupon. As Alberto took the card back to ring her up, Lena thanked Kara. “I had a wonderful time, with wonderful company,” she said.

“You are welcome,” said Kara, signing the receipt Alberto had just set down. He then was called away by another table. They both got up and Lena’s head started to swim. Kara stepped down from the platform and held out a hand to Lena while simultaneously grabbing the back of her arm with the other. “Wow, let me help you down there, pardner. These platforms can be tricky,” she said kindly. Lena enjoyed the warm touch of Kara’s hand in hers. Kara let go when she was stable on the floor and she instantly missed the touch. They strolled towards the door and Alberto came over to see them off.

“Goodbye, Kara,” he said, shaking her hand in both of his. He did the same for Lena’s hand. “Goodbye Lena, it was nice to meet you. Thanks for coming to my restaurant. I hope you enjoyed the food,” he said.

“Very much so, Alberto,” she answered. “Thank you for everything.”

“Ah, it was my pleasure. Please come back and see us.  And Kara, bring your lovely sister!” he said. After assurances that they would, indeed come back to dine, they exited the restaurant. It was now dark and a little chilly. “How did you get here, Lena?” asked Kara as they stood in front of the door. In her slightly inebriated state, Kara wasn’t about to let Lena drive home.

“I took a car here since I didn’t know what to expect,” answered Lena.

“Is it okay if I give you a lift home?” asked Kara.

“That would be wonderful,” said Lena, a little too cozily.

“I’m parked in a lot right around the corner,” Kara said, sweeping her hand in that direction. She started walking and Lena followed by her side. This time Kara just naturally stuck out her elbow and Lena linked hers in it like it was old hat.

They walked arm-in-arm in companionable silence to the car. “This is me,” said Kara, suddenly self-conscious about her beat up old car. “Lena, this is Benny,” she indicated the car as she unlocked the car with her key and held the door open for Lena.

“You named your car?” asked Lena. “No wait, let me rephrase that. You named your car Benny?” said Lena. Kara helped her get settled inside and then walked around to the driver’s side and slid in.

“Yep, Benny the beater. He has a lot of miles on him, but he makes up for it in attitude,” said Kara. She started the car and plugged her phone into her phone holder on the dashboard between the two seats. “Hi Benny,” said Lena, running her hand over the dashboard and giggling slightly. Oh dear, I better get Lena home, thought Kara. Lena is really feeling the alcohol if she just petted her car.

“Okay, where is home?” asked Kara.

“I live at 345 Pine Terrace,” said Lena, a little embarrassed about the address. Kara almost said, oh you mean the Richie Rich side of town, but stopped herself just in time. Lena made her forget she was part of the ultra-wealthy Luther family.

“Wait, I thought you lived on Main Street,” said Kara, suddenly wincing and wanting to take that back. She had gleaned this information from student affairs when she had looked over Jeremy Jackson’s shoulder.

“Ah, that’s the info I put in the student directory. It is just a PO Box. It is to keep nosy people away from my real address in case they try to look me up in the school computer,” she finished triumphantly.

“Guilty as charged,” said a red-faced Kara.

“It was my security team’s idea. I will be sure to tell them it worked.” She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She was feeling so tired all of a sudden. Kara drove out of the parking lot and turned on some soft jazz on the car radio and put the volume at low.

They drove like this for a few miles and then Lena said out of the blue, “We have to talk emojis.”

“Okaaaaay,” said Kara. She knew Lena was a little tipsy but she still didn’t follow.

“No, emojis, the little pictographs on cell phones,” Lena clarified, or so she thought.

“I know what they are. What about them?” asked Kara.

“I’m not good with them. I can’t speak them,” said Lena, her eyes still closed, her head back on the headrest.

“You can’t speak emoji?” repeated Kara questioningly.

“Right. I can’t speak emoji. I don’t know that they mean. And you are going to want to text me tomorrow and you will use emojis and I won’t know what you are talking about. See, due to my lack of friends, I never got to practice. The girls in my class will text each other diamond, horse, flower, baseball, and know it means to meet at that one bar they went to that one time after that one thing for drinks at 8 o’clock. And when you text me tomorrow I won’t know how to respond or even worse, I often turn off my phone and put it away when I am in the lab for hours on end and you’ll text me and I won’t get back to you and you will think I don’t like you and I do like you and then you won’t talk to me…” Lena trailed off.

“Okay, so you are setting expectations. You aren’t good with emojis or cryptic messages and often are out of reach on your phone but I shouldn’t take that as a sign you don’t want to talk to me,” clarified Kara.

“Exactly!” said Lena, a little too enthusiastically.

“And that you do like me…” prompted Kara with a smile on her face.

“Exactly!” repeated Lena. “Hey, wait a minute, you tricked me,” but she laughed as she said it.

“Thank you for telling me that, Lena,” said Kara.

They were silent for a while, the music playing softly in the background. Kara glanced over at Lena. Was... was Lena humming along to the music?

---

As Kara approached Lena’s building following the directions on her phone, the parking gods smiled on her and a spot magically opened up in front. Lena opened her eyes and sat up straighter when she felt the car stop. “Okay, give me your phone number and I will text you mine,” said Kara. After that exchange, Kara said protectively, “Let me walk you to your door.”

“Wait, no!” said Lena, a little too vehemently. “I mean no, you can’t come in,” she gentled her voice.

“That’s okay,” said Kara, a little taken back with the outburst. “I won’t come in, I just want to make sure you make it safely home.”

Lena huffed, more angry at herself then anything. “My apartment is paid for by Luthercorp, as is all the furniture, utensils, and decorations, as well as all my clothes,” she said. “In fact, nothing in there is really mine, except my computer and my ideas. It’s so impersonal. I’m… I’m a little embarrassed to have you see it,” she said with her head down.

“I’m not going to judge, Lena,” said Kara, aware she had to be delicate. “I will just walk you to your door and then wave as you go inside, okay?”

“Okay,” answered Lena. Kara exited the car and hurried around the vehicle to open the passenger side door for Lena and extended her hand. Lena took it as she exited the vehicle. Lena indicated they should take the main walkway. Kara noticed the well-manicured lawn and lush, beautiful flowers that surrounded the sidewalks. Lena waved her digital watch to open the door with a discreet buzz and Kara held the door for both as they entered the building. Kara started for the elevator bank but Lena directed her to a special one that was out of the way.

As they crossed the polished floors Kara noticed Lena was very subdued. Once in the elevator with mirrors and shining brass, Lena pressed the button at the top, the one marked ‘penthouse.’ They exited and Lena went down the hall and finally stopped at a door about half way down.

“This is me,” said Lena, indicating the door with her chin. Then she turned to unlock the door with her key.

“Well, good night,” said Kara, turning to leave, to give Lena her privacy.

“Kara, wait,” said Lena suddenly. She moved towards the blonde woman and put her arms around her. Kara returned the hug, wrapping Lena tightly in her arms. Lena laid her head on Kara’s shoulder. Kara squeezed for a beat or two, smelling Lena’s subtle perfume, then let go suddenly. Lena stared into her eyes, then turned and disappeared through the door.

Kara practically skipped down the hall. She forgo the elevator and took the steps down three at a time. She hurriedly drove Benny home and changed into her Supergirl outfit. Then she did what she always did when she had excess energy to burn, she flew around the earth. Twice. The second time yelling yippee somewhere over Africa. She pulled up just outside of National City and thought, now where can a gal find some crime to bust?

---

Lena was started out of a strange dream by her alarm, the dream of being engulfed by blonde hair. The sudden waking felt like a cold bucket of water had been dumped on her. She sat up and slapped off the alarm clock. Ow, her head hurt, she thought, placing a hand on her forehead and falling back into her pillows. How much alcohol did I drink last night? Last night, she smiled suddenly through the headache. She sat up and reached for her water bottle and drained half of it, snatches of conversation with a certain blonde coming back to her and making her alternatively blush and chuckle. She flopped back in her bed again. Then she leaned up and placed her water bottle back on the nightstand and grabbed her phone and turned it on. She laid flat on her back and held her phone in front of her. She saw Kara’s text from the night before. She added it to her contacts.

“Good morning,” she texted to Kara, along with 20 random emojis. The three dots instantly lit up on her screen, meaning Kara’s phone was on and she was formulating a reply.

“Wow, you ARE bad at emojis,” Kara texted. Then Kara texted five different smiley faces laughing and crying. Lena chuckled to herself.

“Thank you for yesterday,” texted Lena.

“You are welcome,” Kara texted right back.

“Have a great day, and make sure you go to all your classes,” Lena tapped out.

“You too,” Kara replied, who, back in her kitchen, didn’t want to just text Lena everything that popped into her head and scare her away, so was taking Lena’s lead and only texting back if she initiated it. But it was so hard, she thought.

Lena looked at the phone for a few minutes. I guess I made it clear we were done with our conversation, she thought a little wistfully.

Lena placed the phone on her chest, still recalling snippets of conversation from her date last night.

Wait, it wasn’t supposed to be a date, was it? Lena suddenly sat up in bed. What was she doing resting? She had a real date to plan. She threw off the covers and hurried to the shower. She stopped short, placing her hand in the doorway of the bathroom. Was I humming last night, thought Lena?

Chapter Text

Kara exited her Ethics of Journalism class talking to her classmate John, debating about their favorite Game of Throne characters. Once outside the door to the classroom, she stepped to the side to let others pass and kept talking to John. Another classmate, Kevin, off to her side in the hallway, suddenly give a low wolf whistle. His girlfriend, Wendy, playfully slapped his arm, and said, “Pig!”

“What, I can’t complement a beautiful girl when I see her?” he asked in mock astonishment. Kara glanced at Kevin when he said ‘beautiful girl.’ John ended their conversation and said goodbye. Kara waved at him and turned back to Kevin.

“No, you can’t, especially if that girl is not me, and especially if she looks like THAT!” Wendy said a little heatedly. Now Kara’s curiosity really was piqued. She turned to face Wendy and John and then followed their gaze across the hall. She noticed the boots first. The thigh-high boots. She gulped as her eyes traveled up the boots past bare thighs and a short shirt to an expensive-looking silk blouse and then traveled to the girl’s face with ruby red lips and green eyes…. Oh my gosh! It was Lena.

Lena was leaning against the wall with one boot on the ground and one leg bent with the foot flat against the wall, unconsciously mimicking Kara’ pose when she first met her at the Tech Museum. Her face was an impenetrable mask, well aware of the stares she was getting but giving the air that she didn’t care. When Lena realized Kara was looking at her, her face broke out into a huge grin, dropping the mask, which made her look younger and more approachable. She pushed off from the wall and called out Kara’s name.

Kara noticed she was holding a cardboard drink tray with two cups on it in her hands. She called out Lena’s name and quickly walked over to her. Everyone still left in the hallway who had been staring at Lena suddenly looked down at their phone or their shoes to give the two women privacy, now that it was established Kara knew her and she was very clearly there for Kara only.

“Lena, what a surprise. What are you doing here?” asked Kara, laughing. “Suddenly interested in journalism?” she quipped.

“I know this is your second to last class of the day and you usually hurry over to the Campus Coffee House for refreshment so I thought I would bring the coffee to you so you didn’t have to rush,” said Lena with a smile that looked like the cat that ate the canary.

“Thank you, that was sweet of you,” said Kara, also spying a wax bag in the middle of the drink tray that had a pastry-like smell.

“There’s a little out of the way place down the hall that has tables outside. Do you mind if we go there to drink our coffee?” asked Lena.

“Sure, that sounds great,” said Kara, still not over the surprise of seeing Lena. It had nearly killed her to not text Lena throughout the day. She was so trying to play it cool, something she was not and would never be.

“This way,” indicated Lena, leading Kara deeper into the journalism building and taking a right in to a hallway where Kara had never been before. She glanced at the doors with professor’s names and realized this was in a wing with faculty offices. Lena went about halfway down the corridor and turned left at an alcove that had an exit sign over it. She stepped forward into the alcove and then turned back to face Kara, bumping the door’s long handle bar with her backside to open the door.

“Here, let me get that,” said Kara after Lena had halfway backed through the doorway, grabbing the door handle to hold the door open for Lena and then going through herself. They exited into a little brick patio with four sets of tables and chairs. The teachers must eat lunch out here, thought Kara, although they now had it to themselves in the late afternoon. Lena sat at a table near a low stone wall, juniper bushes on the other side. Kara sat opposite her.

“One Caffe Latte with one squirt of chocolate flavored syrup for you, and one cappuccino, no foam for me,” said Lena as she took each drink out of the cardboard tray and placed it in front of the correct recipient.

“And what’s in that bag?” asked Kara.

“Well, I couldn’t decide between a cinnamon roll and a chocolate croissant,” answered Lena, “So I got…”

“Both,” finished Kara chuckling. “Okay, spill it, Luther…” Lena gave an involuntary shiver. Kara just used her last name innocently and not in disdain or anger. It suddenly pleased her.

“You knew my class schedule, you got my usual drink order right, and you got my usual pastry order, two of something,” continued Kara. “Are… are you stalking me?” she finished the sentence playfully. Both Kara and Lena leaned towards each other and laughed.

“No, I investigated you,” said Lena, hitting the word ‘investigated’ hard. “And boy was it fun.”

“Details please,” said Kara, through a mouthful of a gooey cinnamon roll.

“Okay, as you can guess, I just spoke to Priya at the campus coffee shop to get your drink order,” said Lena.

“Traitor!” said Kara playfully, her mouth full.

“Actually, it was she who suggested the two pastries, so you should be singing her praises” said Lena. “However, my day started with a visit to one Jeremy Jackson in student affairs and I AM good at flirting, so he thinks he is gonna get soooo lucky,” joked Lena.

“You didn’t!” admonished Kara.

“Well, at first I pretended to be mock angry with him for letting my details out like that to you, and after that he wanted to make it up to me. He would have given me Mother Teresa’s social security number had I asked,” she continued.

“I bet, with those boots,” mumbled Kara, who had now started on the chocolate croissant.

“What?” asked Lena?

“Nothing,” said Kara. “Chocolate croissant?” She held out the end of the pastry that she had not taken a bite out of up to Lena. Lena broke off a small piece and popped it into her mouth.

“Go on…” said Kara, making circular motions with her other hand, indicating Lena should continue her story.

Lena swallowed. “After ascertaining your class schedule, I skipped my classes AGAIN to go to your classes early to talk to your classmates. And boy did people want to talk about you!” finished Lena.

“Oh really, what did they say?” asked Kara, genuinely curious.

“Well, they used adjectives like nice, sweet, friendly, cute, the boys said, adorable, the girls said, and easy to get along with. The funny thing was when I asked what was your favorite activity and favorite restaurant or thing to eat, they all gave me different answers,” she said. “So that was very frustrating from a scientific point of view, as I was trying to get data to best ask you out on a date and the results varied widely.”

“Oh, a date! Yes!” said Kara. “We could go out on a date. We could go to the symphony, or an art museum, or to the Opera….” Lena placed her hand over Kara’s and Kara’s voice suddenly trailed off.

“Kara, I am trying to propose a date here and you are jumping the gun,” said Lena. At the word ‘propose,’ Kara started to blush.

“Sorry,” said Kara. “I was just trying to think of activities we could do together,” her voice trailing off.

“Things we could do together… Kara, do you even like opera?” asked Lena.

“Sure I do, what with all the singing, and the… dancing….” trailed off Kara, obviously in over her head.

“The dancing… Kara, have you ever been to an opera?” asked Lena.

“Well, no, but I know you like them, and I want to do what you like.” Kara answered.

“You are incorrectly basing that on faulty information gleaned from the internet. I often attend art openings, the Opera and the Symphony because my Mother is a big donor and likes to put in ‘appearances’ there. She drags me to Symphonies and Operas and formal openings to be photographed and get her name in the press. She could care less about the music or the art. She often talks to other VIPS in her box at the Opera or Symphony and then leaves at intermission after making sure the press got her photo. And she has been making me put in appearances there now that I am back in town for grad school. That doesn’t mean I enjoy those things,” explained Lena.

“So instead, during the course of MY research, I formulated a plan for our date that I think you will enjoy,” continued Lena. “Since all of your friends said you are easy going and liked so many different activities and foods, I thought you probably just did whatever the group did or liked. So I propose we go to Barney’s Bowl Arama and Arcade tonight, which has a multitude of sporting activities. We can try them all and you can tell me which one or ones you really like. And Thursday nights are also half price appetizers night during happy hour from 4-7 PM, so we can sample as many as you want without breaking the bank and tell me which ones are your favorite. And oh, the best part, I have a coupon!”

Lena reached into her back pocket and pulled out a dark yellow piece of paper a little larger than a dollar bill and unfurled it under her chin so Kara could see it. “Good for one free plate of chicken wings,” said a triumphantly Lena.

“Lena, thank you! That sounds wonderful! I would love to go to Barney’s Bowl Arama with you! Hey, wait a minute,” Kara said, lowering her voice. Lena, who was holding the coupon up with a big smile now suddenly faltered and lowered it a little. Had she said or done something wrong, she wondered? Did Kara think she was making fun of her with the coupon?

“That’s not a real coupon. And it’s hand drawn!” said Kara accusingly, pointing at the coupon with her chin. Oh, that’s all, thought Lena, secretly relieved.

“It is too a real coupon, drawn by me,” defended Lena playfully, turning it around in her hands. “And at least mine has the actual name of the restaurant on it. And when you turn this in you will indeed get a free plate of chicken wings…. Because I already prepaid for them earlier today,” she finished.

Kara laughed and held out her hand. “Let me see that!” Lena turned it over to her and Kara picked it up in the middle with her thumb and index finger. It indeed looked like a dollar bill in that it had a similar border around the edges and in the corners where there would normally be the numeral ‘1’ there was a chicken wing. And in the middle where George Washington would be was a bowling ball with the words Barney’s Bowl Arama in script around it. At the top were the words, “good for one free plate of chicken wings,” and at the bottom, ‘in sauce we trust.’

“Lena this is amazing. You did this all in one day?” asked Kara.

“Yep,” she answered, taking back the coupon. “So is it a date?” she asked.

“Absolutely!” answered Kara, taking another sip of her coffee. They chatted lightly on other topics until Kara looked at her watch. “Oof, looks like I should head back to my last class of the day. Can I pick you up for tonight?” Kara asked of Lena.

“That would be great. Meet me out front of my building around 5:15 so we can get there and dig in to the appetizers,” said Lena. Both women stood up and started to put their trash in the cardboard holder. Lena carried the trash over to a garbage can and Kara lifted the flap for her. “Will do. Thanks for the coffee.” said Kara. Kara moved to the door to go back inside, and Lena started for the small exit of the patio.

“Oh Lena,” called out Kara, standing with her hand on the door handle of the now-opened door.

Lena turned and started walking backwards away from Kara. “Yes,” she answered, her eyebrows raised.

“Don’t forget to wear thick socks. Those bowling shoes can be iffy,” said Kara, turning to go inside.

“Got it, thanks,” said Lena, giving a small wave and turning around to walk out of the patio. Bowling shoes? What did Kara mean by that, wondered Lena? Oh well, she had approximately two and a half hours to watch YouTube videos to learn how to bowl. What could possibly go wrong?

___

Kara arrived at the front of Lena’s building on time, for once grateful there were no Supergirl chores to hold her up, stopping where Lena was waiting on the sidewalk. She parked the car and exited it, hurrying around to open Lena’s car door for her. After both were safely in the car, Kara pulled away from the curb. They chatted away happily and it seemed like it took minutes to get to the bowling alley, both so wrapped up in their conversation with each other. Both women were wearing causal jeans, a lightweight cotton shirt with three buttons at the top under a jacket for Kara and a nicer blouse covered by a dark leather jacket for Lena. Kara had the front of her hair pulled back in a half pony tail with blonde waves going down her back. Lena had opted for a simple pony tall and bright red lipstick.

After indeed exchanging their shoes for rented bowling shoes, Lena noted wryly, they moved to a large rack of bowling balls. Kara inspected them closely and then selected a 16 pound ball. Lena grabbed the same weight ball off the rack and nearly dropped it as she took on the full weight in her hands. “Whoa there, I like a heavy ball. Are you sure you want the same weight?” asked Kara.

“Well I…” began Lena.

“Why don’t you take this 12 pounder instead?” suggested Kara. Lena acquiesced and thanked Kara as she handed the ball to her. This time Lena was prepared for the weight of the ball and was able to carry it without incident.

They moved to the lane they were assigned, stowed their jackets and real shoes under the seats and placed their balls on the holder in front of their lane. A waitress came to take their order and it was decided that they should start with the ultimate appetizer, deep-friend potato skins, with extra cheese, bacon and sour cream. Lena forgo a beer, not wanting to wake up again with an awful hangover, so they both decided on root beers. As Kara bent down to retie her bowling shoe, Lena took a sudden interest in the scoring console. She might not know bowling, but machines she understood. With a small amount of help from Kara, she entered their names and set up the machine to give them some practice throws. Kara went first, pausing to hold the bowling ball in front of her, then gliding down the lane, and finally bending and rolling the ball towards the pins. It rolled straight and knocked over all the pins.

“Wow, looks like bowling is your game,” commented Lena.

“Oh, I got lucky,” said Kara, secretly glad that she didn’t throw the ball with all of her super strength and reduce the pins to sawdust. She briefly recalled getting invited to her first bowling party when she was 15 and being worried she couldn’t do it right or would give away the fact that she had super strength, something her cousin, Superman told her repeatedly she had to hide. Her adopted sister Alex, had helped her out. She knew the local bowling alley owner’s son and she sweet talked him into letting her borrow the keys to the building so they could come in after hours to practice. Alex patiently showed her how to bowl and how to hold back her real strength. And to even mess up her aim sometimes if it looked like she was getting too perfect. Alex was a good big sister like that, knowing it was important to Kara to feel like she fit in here on earth.

Now it was Lena’s turn to bowl. She picked up her ball and started down the small expanse before the foul line. She pulled the ball back and again the heaviness surprised her and she lost her grip on the back swing. The ball made an awful clunking sound as it hit the floor behind her.

“Whoa,” said Kara, dodging the bowling ball that had rolled backwards and near her ankles. She bent down and retrieved it for Lena.

“Oops, that got away from me,” said a red-faced Lena. Kara came over and handed it back to her. The YouTube videos made it look so easy, she thought.

“Try again,” encouraged Kara.

Lena lined herself up again, grateful to turn her back on Kara, and strode down the expanse and tightened her grip on the ball during her backswing, now knowing what to expect. She came up to the line and swung her hand forward. But instead of bending down and gliding the ball across the floor, she stood up and kept her grip on the ball… until her hand was in front of her and the ball slipped forward out of her grasp, waist high, and crashed down against the hardwood, this time making an even sicker clunking sound, if that was even possible.

Kara laughed, and called out, “Lena, what was that?” Lena couldn’t believe it. She stood stock still, in horror, as the ball slowly rolled down the lane and into the gutter half way down. Involuntarily, she put her face in her hands. Kara must think I am the biggest idiot, she thought. Lena then felt a comforting arm snake around her shoulders.

“Let me guess, you’ve never bowled before?” said Kara quietly but friendly, her voice somewhat near her ear. Lena, head still buried in her hands, nodded her head yes. “Would you like some tips?” offered Kara.

“Yes, please,” said Lena through her fingers.

“Come on,” said Kara, as she tugged her hands down. Her heart went out to Lena. She was sure she didn’t like to fail, or be seen failing. “Let’s start with getting you a lighter ball. Heavier balls are typically for bowlers who have a little experience,” Kara said kindly as she led the way, still holding her hand.

“Okay,” said Lena quietly. “You must think I am a dunce,” voicing her fears out loud as she followed Kara to the rack of balls, their hands still entwined.

“Nah,” said Kara, not looking at her, so as to not add to her embarrassment. “I think you are very brave for trying something new. Ah, here we are, nine pounds, great for fast learners like yourself,” said Kara as she let go of Lena’s hand to pull a bowling ball off the rack and handed it to Lena with a smile.

Lena was instantly buoyed. They walked back to their lane and Lena glanced up at the names that were duplicated on the screen above the scoring console.

“Wha..” she murmured. She knew she had typed in her and Kara’s names in the console, and yet the names had been replaced with “Ace” and “Hot Shot.”

“Oh, that’s a little tradition my friends started, you try to replace people’s names in the scoring console when they aren’t looking. Or in your case, dropping bowling balls all over the lane,” joked Kara. Lena normally would be mad at herself for her embarrassing display at the lane, but for some reason, she didn’t feel upset. And the name thing was cute. “Oh, wait until your back is turned, Missy,” she taunted at Kara.

“Okay, let’s do another practice round. Here, let me show you something in the lane,” said Kara, taking Lena’s bowling ball from her. Kara stood near the ball return machine. “See these arrows?” They help line you up to the pins. These same arrows are repeated at the foul line.” Kara started to walk down the lane. Lena followed her to the foul line and Kara bent down and showed her the same arrows that marked the lane.

Kara placed the ball against her hip and pointed to the markings. “These arrows can help guide your ball. The middle arrow is the largest, obviously, and when you are trying to knock down all the pins, this is where you want to aim with the ball.” She now stood up. “When you stride to the foul line, you want to hold you ball rigidly with your wrist like this and sweep it just over the center arrow, pushing the ball forward on the ground, like this…” She demonstrated as she bent and rolled the ball down the lane without much force. “You don’t need a huge back swing, just be accurate.” It made a little more sense to Lena now to see it broken down simply like that. “Okay, let’s have you try that now,” said Kara encouragingly.

Lena walked back and Kara handed her the ball that came off the ball return machine. “You want your right hand holding the ball to be over the center arrow,” said Kara, stepping behind her. When Lena was lined up correctly, Kara touched her elbow. “Tuck your elbow in,” she said grabbing her elbow. “Now square your shoulders,” said Kara, stepping closely behind her and gripping Lena’s shoulders. “And hold the ball up to your chin like this…” said Kara, who wrapped her right arm around Lena to help hold her ball up. Lena was VERY aware of Kara’s presence behind her. Of her arms practically wrapped around her. Of her breath against her hair at the nape of her neck.

“Uh, Kara?” said Lena. “Do you mind standing in front of me? The close proximity of your body behind me is making it hard for me to think, let alone bowl.”

Kara instantly dropped her arms. “What? Oh… oh, geez, I’m sorry,” said Kara who came around to Lena’s front. Now it was her turn to be red-faced. Kara had been in teacher mode, but the word ‘body’ had suddenly got her embarrassed. She hadn’t realized how close she was.

Good, I’m glad I am not the only one hot and bothered, thought Lena, admiring how adorable Kara was when she turned red.

“Uh, okay, why don’t you give it a try now? With the bowling ball. Down the lane. With the arrows. At the pins. Like I showed you. Why can’t I shut up?” rambled Kara, stepping out of Lena’s way…

Lena chuckled. Then set herself and marched down the lane. She kept her wrist rigid and bent her body and swept the ball over the center arrow smoothly just like Kara had just showed her. Much better than dropping it. The ball went straight, for about half the lane, then lost steam and rolled to the gutter just before the pins. Lena was disappointed. “Great job, so much better,” said Kara, instantly at her side.

“Well, no it wasn’t.” said Lena, self-deprecatingly. “But that’s sweet of you to say.”

“Sure it was, you rolled it straight, now you just need a little more momentum to get to the pins. Try it again, and pull the ball back farther and sweep it forward a little faster as you bend down,” Kara encouraged. The ball was sent up the ball return machine and she grabbed it and settled herself over the first set of arrows. She took a calming breath and went more fluidly down the lane and rolled the ball. This time the ball made it all the way down the lane and knocked down three pins.

“Whoo-hoo,” cheered Kara, instantly at her side. “High five!” She said holding up her hand. Lena slapped it. “Hey, the potato skins are here,” said Kara, as she hurried over to relieve the waitress of them and their root beers. Lena followed and looked again at the scoring console. Tattoo Louey and the The Terminator were now in place. She took a gooey potato skin on a napkin and changed it to The Crushinator and Gutter ball Joe. Kara laughed appreciatively through bites of potato skins, a small dollop of sour cream visible on her nose.

“Why don’t we start the game for real,” said Kara, “And I am going to bowl with my left hand.”

“Oh, am I that bad?” asked Lena.

“Hey, you’re the one who named herself Gutter ball Joe,” pointed out Kara.

“Touche,” said Lena. It was decided Lena would bowl first. While she didn’t drop her bowling ball, she could only knock down a few pins at a time. Once, she knocked down five in a row, a record for her. They also took turns coming up with funny names: T-Rex and Poodles, Peg Leg Pete and Blackbeard’s Ghost, and Mulder and Scully of X-files fame. It wasn’t until the seventh frame, when the names were changed to Lady Lena and Kara Knightley that Lena caught on to Kara.

“Hey wait a minute…” Lena started, looking down at the scores on the console. “That’s why you wanted me to go first. You happen to knock down one less of anything I knock down!” It was true, if Lena knocked down three pins on her turn, Kara would get two, blaming her left hand. Seeing it on the scoring panel made it easy to see, if someone looked at the details. Most people wouldn’t look at the details, but Lena did, Kara noted.

“Um, busted,” said Kara, slightly embarrassed.

“Next you’re going to tell me you really are left handed!” exclaimed Lena, but it was with a smile in her voice.

“No, I’m not, I swear,” said Kara. “I’m just really good with both hands,” she finished weakly.

“Well just knock it off right now, I don’t need your charity,” Lena smirked. She got up to finish her turn and knocked down four.

“Ohh, very good, Lena,” said Kara chirpily. Lena rolled her eyes playfully at her.

“Remember, don’t go easy on me,” said Lena. Kara still using her left hand, knocked down eight. She turned back sheepishly to Lena. “Sorry about that,” she said. Lena laughed, “Why are you apologizing, knocking down a lot of pins is a good thing.” Soon Kara was ahead of Lena in the score.

Then, the improbable happened. In the tenth frame, Lena knocked down six, leaving four on the right. Lena lined up her ball to the right as Kara has shown her earlier and knocked the remaining four for a spare. Lena, turned back to Kara sitting at the scoring console, spreading her hands wide with an incredulous look on her face. Kara stood and pumped her fist for Lena, laughing. Kara took her last turn, knocking down eight. Lena got an extra turn due to her getting a spare on the tenth and final frame. She had one more ball to roll and needed to knock down eight to beat Kara.

Lena paused with the ball in her hand and then strode down the lane and threw her best ball so far. It knocked down the pins in the middle, cascading into the back, leaving pins on both sides. The seventh pin fell and glanced against the eighth on the left hand side, making it rock back and forth. Lena saw Kara was at her side now, having left the scoring table, and shouting, “Come on!” to the wobbling pin. Unbeknownst to Lena, Kara also gave a puff of super breath, not enough to be noticeable, but just enough to knock down the wobbling pin. As it fell to the ground, Kara exclaimed, “You did it!” to Lena, throwing open her arms. Without thinking, Lena stepped into them and hugged her back. Kara got a little too excited, lifting Lena off of the floor and twirling her half way around before she caught herself and put her down. They broke apart a little awkwardly.

“You did it, you beat me,” Kara exclaimed once they were no longer touching.

“Aw, that’s because you were kind enough to bowl with your left hand and pretend to be bad at it,” said Lena, looking a little flushed form the hug and twirl.

“Hey, should we get some chicken wings now?” Kara hastily changed the subject.

“Good idea,” said Lena, going with it.

---

After grabbing their jackets and exchanging their bowling shoes for their civilian shoes and washing their hands in the bathroom, they sat at one of the Formica tables in the small dining area back a bit from the lanes. Lena ordered the chicken wings and flashed her coupon at the waitress, who looked non-plussed. “Yeah, the boss said something about this to me,” she said sourly, collecting the coupon. They also ordered two beers because, well, chicken wings. They talked of a wide variety of subjects and they very messily ate their wings, which had come in a red plastic basket, and downed their beer and laughed a lot. After they had used the moist towelettes to clean their hands, Kara suggested they try the billiards room next.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get us a pool table, Lena. I am just going to wash my hands again in the bathroom. I don’t think the towellette did the trick,” said Kara. Lena agreed, after paying the bill and leaving a very healthy tip for the waitress even though Kara didn’t think she was all the friendly, and they parted ways. Kara was indeed going to wash her hands. Right after she tracked down a certain waitress about a certain coupon.

Chapter Text

The darkened billiards room, which thankfully had a door and walls to keep out the noise of the bowling alley, contained six green-felted pool tables, with rectangular lights hanging over them. There were two men at one table in the far corner, so Lena had chosen a table in the middle. She had to go to counter to pay for the use of the table and get a rack of balls and pool sticks to play. Lena leaned the pool cues against the table. Kara put their jackets down on a tall steel stool, and handed her the triangular rack to place the balls in to start play.

“You want to make sure…” Kara’s voice trailed off as she was about to give tips on how to rack the balls, but Lena’s deft hands quickly arranged the balls, moved them back and forth in the rack before centering them on the table, and used her fingers at the bottom of the rack to press the balls together so there was no gaps between the balls. “Ah,” Kara continued, “So you’ve done this before.”

“I’m no stranger to a pool table,” said Lena, chalking her cue stick, Kara noticed. “Shall I break?” asked Lena. “We can play Stripes and Solids.”

“Be my guest,” said Kara. Kara was actually a little nervous about pool. While Alex had been able to help her with bowling to dial down her super strength, pool took much more finesse and she really had to hold back her strength, to the point where she couldn’t really aim right. She almost couldn’t do it, and also be accurate. So she was terrible at lining up and executing her shots. When she was with her sister, or with friends, they all laughed together about how bad she was. But with the way Lena looked so sexy chalking up her pool cue, Kara suddenly didn’t want to be that dorky around her.

Lena broke expertly and a ball landed in a pocket. “Looks like I am stripes,” said Lena, referring to the ball she knocked in a pocket. It had a stripe of color as opposed to a solid color. Her job was to sink all the similar striped balls into pockets. She had earned an extra turn for knocking a ball in the pocket. She studied the table and then sunk another striped ball in the corner pocket. When she decided she didn’t have a shot at one of her striped balls, Lena dumped the white cue ball in the corner, making it nearly impossible for Kara to have a chance to sink any of her balls. Kara lined up a long shot anyway and struck the ball. Here goes nothing, she thought. It hit the side bumper, ricocheted off the back bumper, hit the other side bumper before rolling and touching the front bumper and slowly rolling to almost the exact spot where Kara had first struck it.

The air around the table was silent for a moment. Then Lena, who was leaning against a tall stool next to the table burst out laughing. “You didn’t touch a single ball!” she exclaimed. “I don’t think you could do that again if you tried” she teased. So much for being cool around Lena, Kara thought.

“Yeah, pool is not my best game,” Kara said softly, trying to put on a brave face.

“Bad luck,” said Lena, a little more evenly, sensing Kara’s mood. She got up from the stool and Lena lined up her shot and sunk another ball, but missed her subsequent shot. This time, the cue ball was lined up with one of Kara’s balls, and all she had to do was strike it true and send her solid ball into the corner pocket. Kara lined up the shot, pulled the pool stick back and mishit the cue ball on the side instead of the middle, make it completely miss her ball.

Lena smirked and quickly put a hand over her mouth to stop her laughter. “How… how did you miss that?” asked Lena incredulously. Normally it would be a penalty but Lena didn’t even want to go there.

“Need I remind you of your first roll of a bowling ball?” Kara shot back.

“No ma’am,” said Lena, properly chastised.

“How did you get so good at pool?” asked Kara. It was a simple question, really. Lena didn’t answer. Instead, her face remained a picture of concentration on the table. Kara stayed quiet as Lena moved around the table to study it, eyes still downcast at the table. After a few moments, Lena bent down to the table and lined up her pool stick. “It was my brother Lex who taught me to play pool,” said Lena quietly, pulling back her stick. She struck the cue ball and sunk another ball.

“Oh really,” said Kara, now sitting on the tall stool, letting Lena have space to tell her story.

“Yeah,” said Lena, chalking up her stick again. “My father had a billiards room in the house and I was forbidden to go in there, which of course made me want to go in there. I would sneak in from time to time, until my adopted mother caught me. Lex happened to be walking by and came in and said he invited me in and was teaching me to play. Said it was good for me to learn geometry and angles. I could tell Lillian didn’t believe him, but he could do no wrong in her eyes, so she ‘allowed’ it. So in the coming days, Lex really did teach me. We practiced all that winter and spring.” Lena had been leaning on her stick, keeping her eyes fixed on the table as she talked. She walked over to the back of the table and lined up her shot and sunk another ball.

“Then, when school was out for the summer, Lex informed me that he had been going to a pool hall in town at night to ‘hustle’ people.” Lena was still talking to the table, as she walked around it. “When I asked what that was, he said he intentionally lost games until his opponent thought he was bad, then they had one final bet for a really large amount and he would then play to win, robbing his opponents of all their money after thinking they had a sure thing lined up. I told him I didn’t think I could ever intentionally lose, and he said that gave him an idea. He decided to take me to the pool hall that night after our parents had gone to sleep.” Lena bent down and lined up her shot. “Lex paid off the man who ran the pool hall to let me in since I was 12. Lex said everyone had a price.” Lena struck the cue ball and landed another of her striped balls squarely in the pocket.

“Sometimes when his opponent got angry for Lex winning the final game, Lex would ‘generously’ offer the opponent the chance to play his little baby sister, me, for double or nothing. They always accepted and when I won, they would usually throw the money on the table and leave in a huff, embarrassed to be beaten by a little girl. He found a way to use my competitiveness to his advantage.” Lena bent down over the table and pulled back her pool cue. “Until it got us in trouble.” She struck the white ball and it glanced off a striped ball, sending it on a path to the corner pocket. “Your solid yellow ball is in my way. If I sink it, I still get to continue my turn. Are you okay with that?” asked Lena, glancing up from her crouch over the pool table, her stick already lined up. Kara nodded mutely, not wanting to break the spell of this very personal story Lena was telling her.

“This one guy was mad when Lex had won the last game and just as predicted, took the bait to play me for double or nothing. As I kept sinking ball after ball, the man got angrier and angrier. Of course it didn’t help that Lex kept laughing.” Lena sank Kara’s yellow ball. She walked around the table again to scan for her best angle, then leaned against her stick as she continued the story, her eyes a million miles away.

“As soon as I sunk the eight ball and it hit the pocket for the victory, Lex crowed how much the man owed him. Except the man had dropped his pool cue, grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm behind my back and held a knife to my throat.”

Kara felt like she had been sucker punched in her stomach sitting on that stool, almost as if she was witnessing the event in real time. And she wanted to save the younger Lena from the terror she must have felt.

“He told Lex to empty his pockets, for the money he had won off of him and any other bills he had. He wanted to make sure Lex took home nothing for his efforts that night. He had Lex place the stack of bills on the pool table and told him to walk back eight steps. Then he walked me forward with the knife still at my throat. He took the knife away to gather the money but still had my arm twisted at my back. Then he shoved me forward into Lex and ran out the back door. Lex didn’t chase him, too stunned. Needless to say, Lex was furious on the drive back to the mansion, saying he would never be in a position of weakness or without a weapon again.” Lena moved to the cue ball. “Eight ball, side pocket,” she said huskily, as she gestured with her stick. She used a light touch to tap the cue ball and it sent the eight ball slowly rolling to the pocket. It seemed to take a year and a day, but it finally dropped softly in the pocket. Lena, still holding her pose over the table spoke to the green felt, “Needless to say Lex never took me back to the billiard hall or played pool with me again.”

Kara slowly stood up from the stool still holding her stick and walked around the pool table to Lena. She knew what she just had witnessed was rare. Lena slowly stood up, still staring at the table. Kara came up on Lena’s left side and put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a sideways hug. “Thank you for sharing that story with me,” Kara said simply, looking at the table with her. She brought her left arm that was still holding her cue stick, around to grasp Lena’s opposite shoulder, encircling her. Lena brought an arm up and grabbed Kara’s outside arm briefly. Then Lena lowered her arm and Kara took that as her cue to let go. 

“Okay, now it’s your turn to play left-handed!” said Kara, with a false brightness she didn’t feel as she moved away from Lena.

“Um, Kara, I don’t think…” started Lena.

“Ah, ah, ah, you said we would do whatever I wanted on this date, and that’s what I want. What, are you scared I might beat you?” she teased.

“Okay Danvers, bring it!” said Lena, also trying to be cheerful.

Kara pulled the balls out of the pockets and rolled them to Lena, who had the triangle rack again and expertly lined them up. “You break first this time,” suggested Lena.

Kara lined up her cue stick and struck the ball harder than she intended scattering the balls more than usual, but didn’t sink any. “Whoa, do you have some pent up anger issues about losing, too?” teased Lena. Kara, still trying to adjust her super strength, was just glad she didn’t send a ball through the rails.

Lena lined up her shot, with her left hand as the dominate one on the stick, and easily sunk her ball. “Looks like I am stripes again,” she said.

“Don’t tell me you are really left-handed?” moaned Kara, lowering her head into her hands.

“I was trying to tell you that Lex made me practice pool with my left hand, too, and sometimes would entice his opponents to play me, both of us left handed, for the final game. That made the score a lot closer, but I still won, since the opponent hadn’t practiced left-handed shots at all,” finished Lena.

“Of course he did,” said Kara, raising her head up out of her hands. Lena missed her next ball badly, yet the cue ball lined up directly with Kara’s ball, making for a very easy shot. Kara moved around the table to strike the ball. “Hey, wait a minute,” said Kara to Lena, looking up at her. “You missed that shot on purpose and intentionally left the cue ball there to make it easier for me to make a shot?!” Kara accused Lena incredulously.

“I had to, otherwise you would never make a shot this entire night!” said Lena calmly, hugging her stick.

“Oh, you just… why you… I’ll… you...um, that’s probably a good idea. I need all the help I can get,” finished Kara in a conciliatory tone. Kara lined up the shot and still mishit the cue ball. Luckily, it hit her solid-colored ball just enough to land it in the pocket. Kara smiled up at Lena from across the table. Lena smiled back.The rest of the game went by in a blur. After the heaviness of Lena’s story about Lex, they both found working together to line up shots for Kara was way more fun than being on opposite teams. Kara would stand over a ball and Lena would stand very close to her side and practically whisper in her ear how to hit the ball, sending goose bumps down Kara’s arm. At one point, Kara was leaning way over the table to reach the cue ball and Lena leaned over her shoulder to check out the shot. Kara was very aware of Lena’s left breast right now. She stopped moving her stick and said to the table, “Lena, remember how when I was teaching you to bowl tonight and I stood behind you and you said it was very… distracting…” Kara trailed off.

“Yeah…” Lena answered, also distracted, still checking out the angle of the shot. Kara turned her head to look at Lena, bringing her face inches from Lena’s. That got Lena’s attention. They stayed like that, suspended in space, and then Lena stood up quickly. “Oh,” she said, her cheeks turning red. “Sorry. Carry on, you got this” Lena said, pulling back from the table and making a rolling motion with her hand. Kara turned back to the table with a smile on her lips, the touch of Lena’s body burned into her skin.

They continued the game. Lena even sunk a few of Kara’s balls to help her out in between hitting her own balls in pockets to clear space, Kara laughing at the strangeness of opponents helping each other. Finally, Kara sank her last colored ball. Lena still had three more on the table. All Kara had to do is sink the eight ball and she would win, and it was still her turn.

Kara stood at one end of the table, near the cue ball. The eight ball was three-quarters of the way down the table from Kara, a little more to the left side. Kara lined up her shot and tested her stick by pulling it forward and back.

“Kara, you...” began Lena, from the tall stool.

“Shhh, quiet, you,” admonished Kara, still testing her stick.

“It’s just that every action has…” continued Lena.

“Uh, uh, uh, stop...” demanded Kara. “You helped me sink so many balls I want to sink this one by myself with no help from you. This way the victory will taste even sweeter when I beat you,” she tried to have a firmness in her voice but it came out too light to have any real menace.

“Okay….” said Lena, holding up both of her hands in a placating motion and ducking her head.

Kara turned her attention back to the table. She lined up her stick again and pulled it back. She knew she needed to make the cue ball strike the black eight ball to the right of center to send it to the left pocket. “Eight ball in that corner pocket,’ she said hastily, pointing with her stick, almost forgetting the rule that you had to declare the pocket in which you were hitting the eight ball. 

This time she struck the cue ball true, and it indeed did hit the eight ball actually where she wanted it to, to the right of center, and sent it to the left, towards the corner pocket. Kara saw the ball drop in the pocket and ran down the table opposite Lena and threw her arms up in victory. “Whooooo, I win…”

“…an equal and opposite reaction,” said Lena, as if releasing a long-held breath. Kara’s head quickly snapped to Lena’s and noticed her eyes still on the table. Kara then looked at the table. The cue ball! It had indeed struck the eight ball on the right, sending it left, but now the cue ball traveled in the opposite direction, to the right…. Right towards the right corner pocket. If the cue ball goes in any pocket when trying to sink the eight ball, the player hitting the ball automatically loses.

“Nooooooooooooooo,” wailed Kara, instantly dropping to her knees near the right corner pocket. She took a breath as if to blow on the ball. If she were playing with her sister Alex or her friend Winn at their favorite alien bar, she would have used her super breath to easily push the cue ball away from the pocket, much like she had done earlier to knock down the bowling pin for Lena. She checked herself just in time, realizing this was Lena who didn’t, couldn’t know her secret, and pretending to huff and puff to change the course of the ball, making sure to blow her breath over the top of the table just in case. The white ball dropped into the pocket. Kara had lost the game.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh,” she wailed, still kneeling, putting her hands on the railing and her head on her hands. Then she heard Lena laughing. Not just a little laugh, an actual belly laugh. Kara turned her head, still resting it on her hands, in time to see Lena double over in laughter on the stool. Lena came up for air and tried to stop herself from laughing. She got off the stool and went around the table to Kara. She grabbed Kara’s arm and hauled her up from her kneeling position on the floor. This time Lena initiated the hug, stepping into Kara’s arms and tucking her head under her chin. Kara fitted her arms around Lena, feeling her soft in her arms. How can Kara be so warm, thought Lena? They stayed like that for several moments, which was fine by Kara, then Lena moved away.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you…” began Lena.

“Yes you were,” she Kara, but she said it with a smile.

“Okay I was! Your face! Your face when you realized the cue ball was about to go in…” Lena started to giggle again, trying to suppress it with her hand over her mouth.

“Okay, I think it is time to move onto the next activity. To the arcade!” Said Kara, holding up her index finger for no reason.

“To the arcade,” echoed Lena.

---

They entered the arcade, and were immediately assaulted with a cacophony of lights and noises from the arcade games. There were two separate groups of pre-teens in the arcade, otherwise it seemed empty and cavernous, making the sound all that more obnoxious. Lena spotted a change making machine near the door and took out a $20 bill. She fed it into the machine only to have it spit it back out at her. She tried it twice more with the same results “Here. Let me try,” said Kara, who took the bill out of Lena’s hands and smoothed it against the side of the machine. She then fed it into the machine and had the same result as Lena.

Lena grabbed the bill and turned and surveyed the game room. There was a glass prize counter along one wall attended by a young girl. Well, she was supposed to be attending but she had her head down looking at something and wires coming out of her ears connected to her phone. Lena walked over to her and noticed the girl was reading a text book. “Excuse me,” said Lena. When she got no reaction from the girl, Lena repeated her words louder. The girl still continued to read, which normally Lena would have been amused at someone reading what looked like a history book, but now she was just annoyed. “Excuse me,” she said for the third time, placing her hand near the top of her book so the girl’s eyes would see it. It surprised her, and she looked up at Lena’s face, “You startled me,” stated the girl. Now Lena was really exasperated.

“Yes, I was trying to get your attention. That machine over there won’t take my $20 bill,” explained Lena.

“Yeah, it’s broken,” said the girl as if it was Lena’s fault. “You have to use that one over there.” She gestured somewhere towards the back wall. Lena glanced over and did not see the machine in question and turned back to the girl, but she already had her nose buried in the book. Lena stared at her bowed head, then turned and decided to find this mythical working change machine instead of saying what she really felt to this clerk in front of Kara. She wove her way through the arcade games and finally saw the machine. She placed her $20 bill in the change machine and it swallowed it up and spat out 80 shiny tokens. Thank God for small miracles, Lena thought.

Kara reached up to the top of the machine that had a stack of plastic red solo cups and took two off the stack. “We can put our tokens in here,” she showed Lena. After dividing up the tokens in the cups, they went in search of games to play.

“Here you go, Lena, air hockey!” said Kara, pointing to the air hockey table with her chin. “It’s all about the angles and geometry, too.” Kara placed her cup of tokens on the railing of the game and pushed a token in the slot. The table whirled into life, pushing air out of the tiny holes on the surface of the table. A red plastic puck dropped out of the back of the goal where Kara was standing. Kara grabbed the knob of the pusher used to hit the plastic disc around the table. Lena took her place on the opposite side, also placing her cup of tokens on the side of the table and picking up her pusher.

“Ready?” asked Kara. When Lena had nodded her consent, Kara placed the puck in front of her on the table and hit it forward with her pusher. The puck careened forward, bouncing off the sides and the back of Lena’s part of the table. Kara kept hitting at the puck as it came back to her. Kara hit the puck at Lena five times, the sixth time the puck bounced off the side rail and into Lena’s goal. The scoreboard on the side of the rail lit up with a “1” for Kara. The whole time Lena did not once touch the puck with her controller.

“Lena,” Kara laughed, “You didn’t even hit the puck!?” she exclaimed in astonishment. Lena bent down and took the puck out of the holder underneath her goal. “It just went too fast for me,” she said. She tapped the puck lightly towards Kara. Kara reached out her controller and jammed the puck back at Lena. This time it took her three tries to get it in Lena’s goal. Lena still hadn’t blocked one of Kara’s shot.

“I thought you said you were good with angles?” Kara teased.

“I am,” said Lena, “it’s just that this game moves way too fast for me to track. I like to take my time and calculate how I should hit something.” She reached down to take the puck out again from her goal. “I like to be much more deliberate and hone in on what angle I need to take.”

“I know, I’ll play left-handed,” offered Kara.

“Please don’t,” said Lena. She tempered her words with a smile. “Just please put me out of my misery,” she adjusted her voice to make it sound lighter than she felt. She hated being bad, failing, at anything. She forcible hit the puck at Kara. Kara put her paddle down on the puck, trapping it against the table and stopping the action.

“Come on, I know you can do this.” Kara hit the puck straight at Lena, at a medium slow speed. Lena reached out with the paddle, gliding it forward on the table, as she had seen Kara do. And she missed. She pulled it back quickly and pushed out again, this time missing to the left. She quickly pulled the paddle back as the puck kept moving closer to her. She had seen Kara swipe at it from right to left, to knock the puck sideways into the side rail and then angling toward the goal, so she attempted that. But instead of swiping and making contact with the puck on the edge closest to her to send it away from her, she swiped over the top, hitting the edge farthest away from her, sending in back into her own goal. The scoreboard lit up a “3” for Kara. Lena put her head in her hands, mortified.

“Oh, own goal, bad luck,” she heard Kara say. Then she felt a comforting arm around her shoulders. Kara had come over to her side. She pulled Lena towards her and their shoulders touched. “Remember that time I sank the cue ball after hitting the eight ball?” said Kara in a gentle voice over the top of her head. “Oh yeah, that was just a few minutes ago. I think we are even!” Kara released Lena and Lena took her hands away from her face. Then Kara bent down to retrieve the puck from her holder, then feed it into Lena’s goal, and repeated the process six more times until the counter reached ten and the game shut off. “So air hockey’s not your game, let’s go play something else,” she said gesturing around the arcade. “Oh wait, look, we got tickets!” Exclaimed Kara, pulling the four tickets out of the dispenser on the air hockey machine. “We can trade these for prizes later.” She grabbed her cup of tokens and Lena followed.

“Thank you for stopping the game,” said an earnest Lena. “Let’s see what else I am bad at…”

“Oh stop it. I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for me to mess up, too. To really do badly… although I would be hard pressed to do so badly as to score an own goal… ow.” Kara had been teasing and Lena had elbowed her lightly. Kara was relieved to see her mood brighten again. Lena wondered how Kara could have such rock hard abs.

They played several different games with varying levels of success, earning a large handful of tickets. When the pile of tickets got too unwieldly, Kara suggested they take them to the prize counter where they could be counted. As they neared the counter, the same girl had her head down in her book, music buds in her ear. This time Lena placed her hand near the top of her book to get her attention, not bothering to talk to her. The girl again looked startled, as if surprised to find herself working here. “Can we cash in our tickets?” asked Lena. The girl took both earbuds out of her ears, placing the wires next to the book. She reached behind the counter and pulled up a digital scale. “Drop them here,” she instructed curtly. Lena did her best to corral the tickets, some on long rolls, to fit onto the scale. Lena was a little put off with how unscientific it was to weigh the tickets to get an accurate reading instead of counting them individually.

Meanwhile, Kara had moved in front of a game near the prize counter that had a circle of lights inside a bubble dome. Each light lit up then turned off quickly, so it gave the appearance that the light was moving perpetually around the circle. Each light also had a number associated with it, Lena noticed. Kara deposited a token in the game.

“You have 367 tickets,” said the girl, writing that number down on a slip of paper and handing it to Lena as she turned back to the counter. Lena wondered if that was truly correct.

“Thanks,” said Lena. For the terrible customer service, she almost said. She was startled when she heard a large whacking sound from behind her. Kara had slapped the ‘stop’ button on the machine. The lights continued a few more beats then stopped on a number; the number two. Two tickets appeared at the ticket dispenser on the machine.

“Aw, I hit the stop button when the light was over the ‘100’ number,” lamented Kara.

“Yeah, there’s a delay to that machine. You actually have to hit the ‘stop’ button before the light is at the number ‘100,’” the clerk supplied belatedly. Lena wanted to strangle her for stating the obvious. Kara tried a few more times and just never could get it right to get the light to land on 100 tickets. She pulled the few she did win from the machine and placed them on the counter. The girl weighed them and adjusted the total on the slip of paper Lena had left on the counter.

“What prize should we get?” Kara asked Lena. The both faced the counter, looking below the glass case and up at the shelves behind the counter. That’s when Lena saw it.

“Kara, look, up there to the right, near the ceiling…” Kara turned her head to where Lena was pointing. Up at the top, nearly hidden behind some cheap looking teddy bears, was a stuffed white unicorn with a rainbow horn and glittery wings.

“Oh my gosh, the unicorn!” said Kara.

“Exactly!” Lena turned towards Kara. “That is the prize we have to shoot for.”

“Uh, Lena, that prize is worth 10,000 tickets.” A look of astonishment was on Kara’s face.

“Then we will just have to hustle some more tickets,” said Lena, a big grin on her face.

“We close in two hours,” the clerk told them flatly.

Lena turned to her to give her a look, but changed her mind. “Come on,” Kara grabbed her arm to pull her away, saving her from saying something nasty. Kara snatched a small plastic basket off of the counter to put their tickets in before following Lena. They roamed the left side of the arcade and made it to the back wall when Kara cried out, “Skee ball!” The machine she was happy to see had a long, flat incline that ended in a small ramp, and a series of concentric rings, each smaller than the last, looking a little like a bullseye, with points assigned to them, the smaller the hole, the higher the score.

Kara walked over to the arcade game and placed a token in the machine and grabbed and pulled on a handle that released nine round wooden balls down a chute on the side of the machine. Lena did the same to the machine next to her.

Kara grabbed a wooden ball from her stack and said, “Now, you grab a ball and roll it up the incline where it jumps in the air at the ramp. You want to aim for the small ring, as you get 50 points. If you miss, it falls to the next ring, which is not worth as much.” Kara pulled her arm back and rolled her ball. It jumped the ramp and hit the top of the 50-point ring, only to straddle the border and fall down into the next sized ring that was only worth 40 points.

“You mean like this?” said Lena as she grabbed one of the balls from Kara’s chute, hip checked Kara out of the way and rolled the ball on a diagonal path so it jumped the ramp and landed in the smallest ring at the top,  marked 100. The machine started spitting out a bunch of tickets.

“Yeah, just like that,” said Kara weakly. “Um, why didn’t you tell me you knew how to play Skee Ball? You just let me make keep talking”

“Because you’re so cute when you mansplain,” said Lena, winking at Kara. She grabbed a ball from her own chute and rolled it on her machine. It jumped the ramp and also landed in the 100 ring, sending her machine into a coughing fit of tickets, too. “The pool hall where Lex used to take me was next to a Chuckie Cheese arcade and sometimes he would give me a load of quarters to play there when the pool hall got crowded on a Saturday night and the patrons didn’t take too kindly to one girl monopolizing a table. So I got good at Skee Ball, too”

“Of course you did,” said Kara. “But it’s good to see you haven’t lost a step,” she added quickly, not wanting to discourage Lena from sharing about her childhood. The played the game for a while and it was clear Lena was very good at Skee Ball. They took a break and collected the tickets, with Lena having nearly double the amount. They wondered around the now emptied out arcade and played some more games and tried to figure out which gave them the most tickets for their money, Lena already having gone to the change machine twice more.

When their basket got too full of tickets, they went back to the counter to turn them in. The clerk was back to studying her book, earplugs back in. This time Lena knew the drill. She placed her hand near the top of the book to get the clerk’s attention. The clerk reluctantly took off her earbuds again. And, looking at them, silently got the scale out from under the counter.

Kara, who was walking with Lena towards the counter, took a step back and put her hand to her ear. “Okay….” Kara said, almost to herself, then louder to Lena, “Um, Lena, I’m just going to run to the bathroom, be right back.” Lena glanced behind her and said okay, then turned back to the clerk.

Kara grabbed the handle of the door and exited the arcade. She then sped-walked to the entrance. Not too fast, she told herself, you don’t want to attract any unwanted attention. She reached the main exit to leave the bowling alley, and pushed through the double doors, then dove into some tall bushes to the left of the exit. When she had been in the arcade with Lena, the tiny transmitter that was implanted in her ear had gone off. On the other end of the transmitter was the DEO. They would contact her when they needed her services, usually in an emergency, as her sister would call her on her cell phone if it wasn’t time sensitive. Kara could touch her ear to turn on the transmitter to talk to the operator on the other end, and press her ear to turn off the speaker. She had given a quick ‘okay’ to the message she had received and then had made up the excuse of going to the bathroom.

She changed in to her Supergirl outfit and flew off from the bushes in a blink of an eye. The message had said a delivery truck had backed into a utility pole and knocked it down, landing over the pier. The problem was, there was a large music festival at the pier and crowded with people and they had closed off the roads to traffic. They police, fire trucks and City electric trucks couldn’t get through the crowds at all to cordon off and fix the pole. A single police officer on duty was keeping people back and safe, but he was worried the pole, which still had live lines attached to it would fall into the water and that could possibly electrocute someone.

Kara approached the pier from the air and swooped down to pick up the pole. “Keep everyone back” she yelled at the police officer. She picked up the steel pole, straightened it out and placed it back on the broken base. She used her heat vision to melt the steel of the pole back onto the base and smoothed it with her hands so it was now upright and steady. She wrapped the loose wires around the pole and tied them so they couldn’t harm anyone and the electrical crew could deal with after the music festival was over. After pushing on the pole to make sure it was stable, she gave a thumbs up to the officer, and then flew off. She touched her ear and told the operator at the DEO the job was finished and everyone was okay. She landed in the same bushes outside the bowling alley and changed back to her civilian clothes in a whirl wind. I just hope I didn’t keep Lena waiting and that she went looking for me, she thought.

---

Lena watched until Kara had exited out the door and it swung shut. She had to do something about this clerk before she blew her top. She took something out of her back pocket and turned back to the counter. “You know, I forgot to ask your name,” she said to the clerk.

The clerk looked up at her, surprised. “It’s Skilar, with an ‘I’, instead of a ‘y’,” she answered. Of course it is, thought Lena. “Well I’m Lena,” she said in her most charming voice, “And this is for you.” Lena had taken a hundred dollar bill out of her back pocket, and she now flattened it out on the counter, placed her finger on the middle, and pushed it across the glass display case over to Skilar.

Lena took away her finger and said,” I’m on a date with Kara, who is very special and will be back at any moment, and I want this date to go well, so I was hoping you could give us some good customer service, you know, not wear your earbuds, answer our questions, look up when we come to the counter, that sort of thing.”

Skilar kept her head down, staring at the bill. Lena wondered if she had offended the girl somehow. Or maybe it was not enough money? Lex always threw money around to get his way. Should she offer more? Then Skilar snapped her head up and blurted out, “Please don’t tell my Uncle.”

Wha- this was the last thing she expected Skilar to say. “Who is your uncle,” asked Lena, saying the first thing that came to her mind.

“My Uncle is Barney Johnson, he owns this bowling alley, I’m his niece, Skilar Johnson,” explained Skilar. Ah, thought Lena, he of Barney’s Bowlarama fame. But she was still a little confused.

“He knows I’m taking a huge amount of AP classes my senior year of high school he lets me work the shifts in the arcade when it’s not very crowded so I can get my homework done while saving some money for college. I am the first one in my family to go,” she explained hastily. “As long as my homework doesn’t interfere with my helping the customers. He would be so angry that I am not doing a good job and you had to bribe me. Please don’t tell him,” she implored Lena.

Whoa, the desperate plea was more than Lena had bargained for. She wanted to redirect this conversation, get it back on track. “Where are you going to go to college?” she started with, to get the girl to relax a little.

“Oakdale University, starting this Fall,” she answered.

“That’s a good school,” said Lena about the small, private college a few hours away from National City. It had a good reputation with small class sizes and individualized learning. “What are you going to study?”

“I want to get a degree in business, maybe a minor in marketing. It’s all because of my Uncle, really,” said Skilar, now warming to the topic “He taught me that it wasn’t a matter if his customers won or lost the games they played. They came out for an experience, and if they had fun playing the games or bowling then they would be back, and hopefully bring a friend. It’s amazing, he is so right. Plus he runs these great promotions and it is fun to see what brings in the biggest crowd, or different type of crowd. I find it fascinating, He’s a good business man. I would like to get my degree and run a business of my own someday, like him.”

“I have no doubt you will be fantastic at whatever you put your mind to, Skilar.” That comment earned Lena the first genuine smile from Skilar of the night. “I couldn’t help but notice you seemed distracted tonight. Is that a history book you’re reading?” Lena indicated by pointing with her chin.

“Yeah, sorry, I have this paper due tomorrow and because I had two tests last week in my other classes and another paper due this week and I haven’t even started on this one and I am so behind, and I don’t know where to start, really," she said dejectedly.

“Well, tell me what the paper is supposed to be about and maybe we can brainstorm some ideas together?” offered Lena.

“What? No, you don’t want to hear about my history paper!” exclaimed Skilar, her cheeks now blushing slightly.

“Sure I do,” said Lena. ”I’m a bit of a history buff myself. I often read historical fiction when I want to relax.” Which was true. She just couldn’t believe she admitted that out loud. “The Civil War can be so fascinating,” she threw in for good measure.

“Okay… well,” started Skilar slowly, reluctantly.” You see, it’s, um, it’s supposed to be about our nation’s capital and why it switched locations throughout the early years and how it came to be in Washington D.C..”

Lena put her hand on her chin and was silent for a beat. Then she said, “Have you heard of the Broadway play ‘Hamilton,’ about the life of Alexander Hamilton?”

“Uh, sure?” said Skilar, looking anything but.

“Well, there’s a song called ‘The Room Where it Happens,” continued Lena. “It’s told from the perspective of Aaron Burr, an opportunist who would shift his political beliefs and allegiances to advance his career. At first listen, Burr talks about a dinner where Hamilton and future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison make some big decisions that affect the newly formed United States. Then he shows his true colors by saying he just wants to be in any room where ‘it is happening,’ meaning where policy is made and having the power to make policy. He doesn’t really have any strong convictions, he just wants the prestige and power that Hamilton has, and is envious.” Lena took a breath to gauge Skilar’s interest in this story. So far she seemed to be listening raptly, so she continued.

“However, the song also talks about a real-life deal that happened. Hamilton, who was the Secretary of the Treasury at the time, wanted a plan to help states pay off their debt from the Revolutionary War and help establish a strong bank and Federal Government. Jefferson and Madison wanted the capital moved from New York to the border of Virginia and Maryland, to help their home state of Virginia become the center of government, and for the revenue it brought in and for the prestige and bragging rights. Hamilton was an immigrant, and not partial to any place nor valuing the feeling of pride of place, so he traded the capitol to DC in exchange for their votes for his debt plan. Jefferson and Madison were gleeful, thinking they had won a big prize, and Hamilton, who didn’t care where the government was, thought he got the better end of the bargain. It is the three of them in a room, with no one else, that got to decide America’s fate that lasts through to this day. You should listen to it on your phone. It might spur some ideas,” she suggested.

The door opened and Kara walked back in the arcade. Two heads turned, surprised. Skilar moved her open text book over the $100 bill. As Kara walked up to Lena, Skilar belted out a little too loudly, “Kara, hi, I was just telling Lena that you have 4,122 tickets!”  Geez thought Lena, dial it back a little kid, you have no poker face. Plus, Lena was pretty sure their ticket count had been in the low 3,000s. Did Skilar just gift them an extra 1,000 tickets?

“It’s a little after nine, and we close at 10 PM, so you should have plenty of time to try to get to 10,000 for the Unicorn,” said a suddenly chirper Skilar, who had been paying attention after all.

“Well, let’s get to it,” said a naturally chirper Kara. They decided the best way to get tickets was back at the Skee Ball machines. At first Kara and Lena played the machines side by side, but soon it was clear Lena was the money maker. Kara switched roles to getting more tokens and shuttling the tickets back to the prize counter to be added to their tally.

“How many tokens do we have left?” asked Lena, rubbing her right arm, a little sore from bowling the wooden balls up the ramp at the Skee Ball machine.

“Uh, just the one,” said Kara sheepishly holding up their last remaining token.

“Should I get more?” she asked, turning her wrist to look at her watch. It was few minutes after ten o’clock. Slkilar had said they closed at 10 PM, she must be holding the arcade open for them, thought Lena.

“Lena, no, you have already spent way too much anyway,” said Kara, not mentioning that by her count, Lena has spent $200 in twenty dollar bills in the change machine.

“Come on, let’s see what our count is with this last batch. I know we were close. We have to be close. I’ve never owned a stuffed animal before” she lamented. And suddenly Kara wanted to do whatever was in her power to win that unicorn for Lena. They plunked down their last batch of tickets on the prize counter and Skilar weighed them and scratched on the piece of paper. Lena felt Kara move behind her.

“Let’s see, that comes to…. 9,901 tickets. Wow, you are so close! I’ve never seen anyone get this high an amount.” Skilar looked up and grinned at Lena.” Why don’t we say this is an even 10,000?”

Lena was about to say yes, when Kara answered, “No way, we have to earn it!” She deposited their final token in the machine with the circle of lights, the one she had zero success on all night.

“You heard the lady,” said Lena to Skilar. “We have to earn it.”

“Look, why don’t I just give you the unicorn? You certainly bought enough tokens…” Skilar pleaded with Lena.

“That would be cheating!” said Kara, entranced, watching the lights move around the board.

“You heard the lady,” said Lena again to Skilar. “That would be cheating,” remembering Skilar had already fudged their total at least once, maybe even a few more times after that.

“Look, some teenagers left about 150 tickets on the counter because they were too cool to collect any prizes. Why don’t I just add that to your total, this way they were earned,” suggested Skilar, desperately.

There was a loud smack that made both Lena and Skilar jump. Lena turned back to the sound to see Kara with her hand on the stop button of the machine. The lights on the circle continued on and then stopped… right on the ‘100’ peg. The machine released a loud whooping alarm and red and blue flashing lights started spinning out of the middle of the machine, tickets now spilling out.  

Kara was also spinning around in a circle, her hands in the air, also whooping in time to the alarm on the machine.

“I’ll go get the unicorn,” said Skilar happily. Lena went over and hugged Kara briefly but fiercely, an incredulous smile on her face.

They walked back arm in arm to the prize counter. “Way to go, champ,” said Lena to Kara. They watched as Skilar maneuvered a long metal pole with a hook at the end up to the unicorn. She hooked the loop on the top of the stuffed unicorn and brought it down. She removed it from the pole and took out a cloth and wiped the dust that had accumulated on the top of the unicorn’s back, wings and horn. When she was satisfied the stuffed toy was dust free, she held it out and offered it to Kara. “Here ya go.”

Kara took it from Skilar and then gave it to Lena. “I think this really belongs to you.” Lena was surprised and tried to hand it back to Kara.

“No, you should have it,” but her protest was weak. Kara grabbed the unicorn’s head and pretended to make it speak, “I want to go home with you, Lena,” Kara said in a high voice.

Lena gave in. “How could I resist such a charming request,” she laughed and tucked the unicorn under her arm as they started to walk to the exit.

“Oh Lena, can I, uh, talk to you for a minute?” asked Skilar. Both women paused. Kara recovered first.

“I’ll go get our coats,” she said jerking her thumb over her shoulder towards the door. Then she spun on her heel and left them alone.

Lena went back to the counter. “Thank you for your help with my paper. I listened to that song you recommended, plus a couple of others from the play. You were right, they were amazing, and the song about the room where it happens gave me some ideas about how to approach my history paper. I already wrote an outline and just have to go home and flesh it out and type it up. I might even get to bed before 2AM tonight.”

“I’m glad I could help,” offered Lena.

Then Skilar closed her text book. The $100 bill was still in its same place, untouched. “I wanted to give this back to you,” said Skilar, lowering her voice and placing a finger on the bill and sliding it back across the glass counter much in the same way Lena had given it to her. “You shouldn’t have to bribe me to do my job properly. You taught me a valuable lesson tonight to not ignore my duties while on the job. It certainly won’t happen again. Plus, for what’s it worth, I think you make a really cute couple.” She smiled.

Lena stared at the bill on the counter, deep in thought. A hundred dollar bill was usually a lot of money to someone making minimum wage in a bowling alley and trying to save for college. It took a lot of integrity to give it back, to admit they weren’t doing a good job. Not many would. Coming to a decision, Lena finally reached for the bill, folded it and tucked it into her back pocket. She also extracted a business card out of the same pocket.

“You know, my company has a summer internship program for business majors. Now, they have already filled the spots for this summer, and you do have to have at least a year of college under your belt to get into the program. However, may I use that pen?” Lena gestured with her hand at the pen on the counter.

“What? Oh sure,” said Skilar, handing her the pen.

“However, they are starting to look for candidates for next year. I think you would be an excellent candidate. It is great experience, you learn a lot about the business world, looks great on your resume, and probably pays more than the bowling alley, allowing you to save even more for college. Would you be interested?” asked Lena.

“Wow, would I?” said Sklar rhetorically.

Lena looked at her. I think she said yes, thought Lena. She bent down and started writing. “This is David Anderson’s number. He is in charge of the program. Just give him a call and say Lena recommended you for the program. He owes me a favor, so you should be in,” finished Lena, putting the pen down and sliding the card over to Skilar. She knew for a fact that if Skilar called and mentioned Lena’s name, she would indeed be in. One of the perks of her last name on the company letterhead.

“Wow, thank you. Thank you so much, Lena,” said Skilar. She picked up the card and cradled it in both hands. “This is such a great opportunity. Wait, what is the name of your company you work for?” she asked as she turned the card over, wanting to get a look at the name of the business. Instead she zeroed in on the last name on the card. “You’re Lena Luther?” said an incredulous Skilar. “Of LutherCorp?” she asked again, her eyebrows raising into her hairline.

“Yes and yes,” answered Lena, as she started to move away from the counter. “But I’m thinking of changing the name of the company.” She shot Skilar a wink. “I hope our paths cross soon, Skilar Johnson. Feel free to call me at that number on the front if you ever want to chat about business.”

With that, she turned away from the counter and saw an expectant Kara waiting at the coat rack with her coat on. She held out Lena’s jacket to her as she drew near.

“Everything okay?” asked Kara, as Lena handed her the unicorn and turned around so Kara could help her into her coat. Kara couldn’t stop herself. She had eavesdropped with her super hearing, curiosity getting the better of her. It was a bad habit. Especially when a certain dark-haired woman was involved.

“Oh yeah,” answered Lena, pulling her ponytail over her jacket and straightening her sleeves, then reaching to take the stuffed animal back from Kara. “We got to chatting when you were in the bathroom about her history paper and I gave her some pointers.” Kara waited, but no more information was forthcoming from Lena. Nothing about the bribe, and it being rescinded, or about the offer of the internship. I guess Lena is not one to draw attention to her words and deeds, thought Kara, reveling in how much she had gotten to see of Lena tonight.

Chapter Text

Kara turned and held the door open to the arcade, letting the subject drop. They walked to the main double doors and Kara once again opened the door and ushered Lena though. Once outside, she glanced at the bushes where she had done her quick change, and hurried to the car, blowing on her hands. “Gosh, it’s a little nippy out here,” eliciting a chuckle from Lena.

Kara unlocked the car door of her old beater with her key and opened it for Lena. Lena handed her the unicorn again as she got herself situated, and Kara handed it back when she was, as if it were perfectly naturally to incorporate taking care of a unicorn into their routine. “Thanks,” said Lena as she took the unicorn back from Kara.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to your $200 unicorn, would we?” she teased and then shut the car door. Kara walked around and let herself into the driver’s side, shut the door and started to fasten her seatbelt.

“Oh, you realized that, huh? I was hoping you wouldn’t notice how many times I went to the change machine.”

“Worth every penny,” Kara turned and gave Lena as easy smile. “Do you mind if I show you something first before I take you home?” she asked, putting the car in gear.

“Oh sure,” Lena acquiesced, wondering what Kara could possibly show her at ten o’clock at night. Kara snapped on the radio and a news flash said, “…a downed utility pole at a music festival on the National City pier...” Kara quickly jabbed at the preset buttons to change the station.

“I, uh, let’s listen to some music instead of news,” she said quickly as she glanced at Lena. Soft pop music came out over the speakers. They didn’t say much as they drove. Lena noticed the road narrowed down to a two lane road and then the street lights vanished, leaving the scenic landscape bathed in pale moonlight. She was curious about where they were going, but didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Then Kara slowed and turned on her left turn indicator, even though there were no other cars on the road and they hadn’t passed one in the last seven minutes. Lena peered at the road in which they were going to turn and noticed it was a dirt road, leading up an incline in the darkness.

“We’re turning up there? Um, I think I am having flashbacks to every slasher movie I’ve ever seen,” Lena joked. As the car turned, she saw a sign next to the dirt road saying Evergreen Park Overflow Parking. The car strained to go up the dirt incline. “Why do I feel like I’m going to be seeing a guy with a hook for a hand in the bushes soon?” Lena joked, which elicited a chuckle for Kara.

The dirt road leveled out to a large space which indeed looked like it could be a parking lot, except for the big boulder off to the right. That thing was massive, Lena thought.  Kara pulled in next to the boulder, with the car’s nose stopping next to a guard rail to keep it from going over the side of a cliff.

“Why Kara, are you taking me parking to try to take advantage of me!” exclaimed Lena, using the old fashioned term for when teenagers would park their car and make out.

“No,” said Kara, have amused, half embarrassed. She killed the car engine and cut the lights. And then Lena saw it. National City, swept out before them, in a breathtaking panoramic from their position of being up in the foothills, lights all aglow.

“Oh wow, Kara, this is beautiful. Look, there are the lights for the National City airport. I can see the runways.” She swept her head from right to left, taking in the twinkling lights of the city below.

“I’m glad you like it, but that’s not why we are here,” said Kara, exiting the car.

“It’s not?” said Lena, also lifting her door handle and exiting the vehicle, leaving the unicorn tucked safely inside on the dashboard. She peered in the darkness for Kara at the head of the car, but couldn’t find her. Then she heard the truck open. She made her way carefully in the dark to the back of the car where Kara was.

“I told you yesterday I really liked outer space,” began Kara. Was that just yesterday, thought Lena, when they had that awful fight outside of the Tech Museum? Kara handed Lena a blanket from her trunk.

“And I really like astronomy ever since my adopted father bought me a telescope to help distract me from my grief after losing my parents. He taught me all about the stars and the different constellations, and I wanted to show them to you tonight. There’s only a crescent moon, so it’s not too bright and it’s excellent conditions to see the stars, now that we are away from the center of National City.” She pulled out a thick quilt for herself and slammed her trunk. Kara walked on Lena’s side of the car. Now that her eyes were acclimated to the weak moonlight, Lena followed more sure-footedly. They stopped at the hood of the car.

“That’s sweet,” said Lena, and she found out she really meant it.

“We did a lot of car camping. Sometimes with Alex, sometimes juts the two of us. He taught me that a car windshield is just the right angle to sit back and look up at the night sky.” Kara twitched out the comforter over the hood of her car, then pulled it up to the top of the windshield. Then she went around to the driver’s side and arranged the other half of the quilt similarly. She walked back to Lena. “This thick comforter should be soft enough for us to lay down on the surface of the windshield and hood and also make sure we don’t get burned from the heat of the car’s engine. I think this should be okay, what do you think?” She rested her hand on the comforter as if testing the heat.

Lena also placed her hand on the comforter. “Yeah, it’s not too hot, yet the heat from the engine will help keep us toasty,” she said. Kara was secretly relieved Lena had tested it. When she put her hand on the hood, she had no idea if it was too hot for human skin or not. Her super tough skin was not the best judge.

“Okay, I find it best if you start at the front bumper and climb up the hood, then sort of crawl to the windshield and then lie back against it,” Kara gestured with her hands the route Lena should take. Lena handed the blanket in her arms to Kara and moved to the front bumper. Kara held out her hand and Lena instinctively took it while climbing up on the hood of the car and crawled the rest of the way to the windshield. When Kara was satisfied she was in the correct position, she flicked the blanket over Lena and then walked around to the driver’s side and folded back the blanket from her spot. She then scrambled up the bumper and hood. She maneuvered herself so that her head was just below the top of the car and resting on the windshield, then pulled the blanket over her.

Lena watched her get settled, then said, “You father might have been right about a car windshield being just the right angle for stargazing, but they are not good for ponytails.” Now it was her turn to sit up. She grabbed the elastic holder and yanked it down, shaking her hair out. Kara, who was behind Lena when she did this, got a perfect view of the hair slowly shaking out of the holder and cascading down her back, the pale moonlight gleaming in the jet black hair. She gulped audibly.

Lena settled back down, lining up her head the same height as Kara’s. “There, that’s better.” Kara waited until she was laying down and pulled the blanket up and over her shoulders and tucked it under her chin. It was a very intimate gesture that did not go unnoticed by both women.

“Now,” said Kara, pulling the arm closest to Lena out from under the blanket and pointing it up at the sky. “See that cluster of stars?” she asked.

“Wait, no, hold on, “aid Lena, who scooted closer to Kara and laid her head next to Kara’s shoulder, touching the top of her head to Kara’s temple. She now was in better position to look up Kara’s arm to see what stars she was trying to show her.

“Right there, those five,” she traced a pattern in the sky. “That’s Cassiopeia, the Greek queen.”

“Oh, she was the wife of King Cepheus. Wasn’t she placed in the sky as a punishment after enraging Poseidon with the boast that she herself was more beautiful than his sea nymphs?” asked Lena.

“Oh, um, I guess. I just know she was a queen and married to Cepheus, like you said. I didn’t know the rest of the myth about Poseidon,” finished Kara.

“My adopted Mom made me read about Greek Mythology. And Roman Mythology. She wanted me to be well rounded,” said Lena matter-of-factly.

“Well, our next constellation is her husband, Cepheus. See that group of stars over there?” Kara moved her arm and Lena squinted to see where it was pointing.

They continued in this vein for a while, where Kara pointing out a cluster of stars, tracing lines in the air and naming them and Lena recalling as best she could the back story from her Greek Mythology, the shared body heat at once familiar and electric.

Soon they were out of stars and constellations to name and Kara lowered her arm between them. “Thank you again for a lovely evening, Lena. I enjoyed the special treatment.”

“You are very welcome,” said Lena. “So, as I said, your father was spot on about a windshield being a perfect angle to look at stars, but unfortunately, it is not very comfortable.” Lena rolled onto her side, facing Kara. She pulled her knees up on the hood, touching them to Kara’s side. Why was this women always so warm? Did she have her own personal heater, she wondered? With her torso on the windshield, Lena bent her elbow and cupped her head in her hand. This had the effect of her head being very, very close to Kara’s lips. Almost as if she was towering over them. She could see Kara’s features in the pale moonlight now that her eyes had fully acclimated to the darkness. She noticed Kara’s eyes were staring straight ahead into the night sky.

“It’s too bad that this is our official first date,” Kara said to the stars above.

“Oh,” said Lena noncommittally, staring at Kara’s face.

“Yeah,” continued Kara in a low voice, purposefully not looking at Lena. “Because a first date usually ends at the door, with a hug. But a second date… now a second date, if it happens, means both people like each other enough to see each other again. A second date typically ends at someone’s doorstep with a kiss… and I really want to kiss you right now,” Kara breathed out that last line, still pointedly staring straight ahead.

Lena pulled her free hand out of the blanket and brought it up to Kara’s face. She slowly, gently ran two fingers across Kara’s forehead before capturing a stray strand of blonde hair and tucked it back behind Kara’s ear. She continued the motion down until her hand cradled Kara’s jaw, turning it so Kara was forced to look at her. Blue eyes turned toward green.

Lena leaned in, brushing her thumb against Kara’s cheek. She stopped just short, silently waiting to see if there were any objections. After a beat of very intense eye contact, Lena leaned all the way down and kissed Kara sweetly. She pulled back slightly, her lips just barely touching Kara’s and said, “I think this one time we can make an exception…” The syllables were spoken just barely there against Kara’s lips, and Kara felt them more than heard them. Then Lena pressed her lips all the way on Kara and kissed her hard. A current flowed through Kara at the kiss, all the way down to her toes.

First Lena captured her bottom lip between hers. Then did the same for her top lip. Lena’s hair tumbled down on both sides of them, Kara noticed through heavily-lidded eyes, creating a neat curtain, so it was just the two of them. When Lena heard Kara sigh, she deepened the kiss. Soon, she opened her mouth and Kara reciprocated. Tongues got involved.

Lena’s elbow was still on the windshield and was starting to hurt, she registered faintly, so she slide her thigh up and over Kara’s, shifting her body towards her. Kara used the arm that had been pointing out constellations to push Lena more on top of her torso under the blanket, not breaking the kiss. Lena now put her forearm on the windshield next to Kara’s head, the hand that was on her cheek now covered her ear and tangled her fingertips in Kara’s hair. Kara brought her other arm up Lena’s back slowly, moving under her hair to rest at the nape of her neck, her fingers splayed in the silky goodness. Lena moaned softly in her mouth, feeling goosebumps on her arms at the touch.

Kara’s mouth was so soft and pliant, so warm and accommodating, moving with her as she explored. Kara’s tongue chased hers in a most enjoyable way. It created a very intimate environment, Lena thought hazily. It was kind of hard to think at the moment. Soon, they had explored each other’s mouths slowly and completely.

Reluctantly, Lena pulled back, gasping for breath, breaking contact with Kara’s mouth. A smile spread across her face as she looked down at Kara. Kara smiled back, her eyes crinkling. “You take my breath away, Kara Danvers,” said Lena, dipping her head to rub her nose against Kara’s. Kara’s smile widen, if that was possible.

They stayed like that for a few more seconds, staring into each other’s eye. Or maybe a few hours, Kara couldn’t tell, she lost all concept of time.

“Damn, I must be squishing you,” said Lena, suddenly realizing she was half draped over Kara’s body, feeling those rock hard abs again.

“No, really, you’re fi…” began Kara, but was cut off as Lena moved off of her. Kara sat up and held the blanket up for Lena as she moved. Lena lay on her side on the windshield, facing Kara, drawing her knees up and tucking her hands under her head in a makeshift pillow. Kara tucked the blanket under her neck and rubbed her hand over her shoulder slowly, sending a warm jolt down Lena’s spine.

Kara hunkered down under the blanket, facing Lena. Lena felt a hand lift her knee slightly. She lifted it more and Kara slid her thigh between Lena’s knees, bending it, touching the back of their calves together, the other leg straight, touching Lena’s knee caps. Kara pulled the blanket up to her shoulder and tucked her hands under her head, mirroring Lena’s position. How was Kara so warm all the time, thought Lena?

The two women stared at each other in the pale moon light. Lena reached out a hand and wiped a smudge of her lipstick off of Kara’s lips with her thumb. It was way more intimate than it should have been. The silence thickened yet the eye contact remained light and airy.

Kara broke the silence first. “You’re such good kisser!” she whisper-exclaimed.

“Right back atcha, darling,” said Lena languidly.

“No, I mean it. You know how important kissing is to me. And you… your lips, your mouth, the intimacy you created with them… just wow.”

“It takes two to tango,” said Lena at the gushing compliments.

Kara was silent for a beat. Lena was content to stare into Kara’s eyes. “Thank you again for tonight,” Kara said.

“You’re welcome, again,” said Lena with a small smile. There was obviously something on Kara’s mind. She waited.

“It’s just… you were right, when you said earlier today you talked to my friends and they couldn’t name my favorite activity or food. I do tend to just ‘go with the flow’ and do whatever the group is doing or what my date wants to do. Not that I mind, usually, I always have a good time no matter what we are doing. It just was nice tonight to have a whole date planned around me, for me to enjoy doing the things I wanted to do. It felt great to know someone was making sure I was happy. I mean… Lena Luther tried bowling for me!” she finished.

Lena chucked warmly at that, “Indeed I did. You are worth it.” That last part just slipped out before she could think. Lena was slightly embarrassed, except when she looked across the small distance between them she saw Kara smiling back at her.

Then it happened. Lena felt it before she saw it. Kara’s whole body stared to vibrate, similar to how a little puppy starts shaking their whole body to wag their tail. Her eyes got bright. Kara was having an idea.

“Lena Luther, will you go on a second date with me,” said Kara, keeping up the use of last names started by Lena.

“Kara Danvers, I would love nothing more,” answered Lena.

“The National City Art and Wine Festival is this weekend. Have you even been?”

“Yes and no,” answered Lena, eliciting a chuckle for Kara.

“Lena, that’s like saying you’re a little bit pregnant. Either you have been or you haven’t. To put it in terms your nerdy brain might more readily understand, it is a binary answer.”

Lena considered. “You know that bandstand in the middle of the Festival where bands play and they have dancers and other acts and stuff playing throughout the day?”

“Yeah,” answered Kara.

“Well, my mother always liked to be seen there, so would always donate some money to come charity or cause, and then been seen going up on stage to hand someone a ridiculously big cardboard check, or else she liked to receive a plaque for ‘women of the year’ because she gave money to some charity or something.” Lena started to explain. Kara held herself still so as not to break the spell Lena was weaving with her memories.

“It started, if I remember, around the time I was five or six. My mother informed me we were going to the Art and Wine Festival to see her go up on stage. I asked what a festival was. Lex said it was like a party, so I was excited. We had to get dressed up. I remember the shiny black dress shoes I wore pinched my feet. Mother dragged Lex and me through the festival as fast as she could to our seats, but I wanted to dawdle, plus my feet hurt. And then I spotted a playground full of kids, a bounce house, rides, the whole nine yards. I asked my mother if we could go, Lex could watch me, as I knew she didn’t go to playgrounds, but she answered curtly it was dirty and full of germs and that the children weren’t very nice, even though they looked like regular kids to me. So we sat in hard back chairs for what seemed like an eternity to a bored little kid and watched my mother go up on stage”

Kara instantly felt for Lena, and the Lena that was five years old.

“The next year she announced we were going again and Lex said ‘no thank you’ as it was boring and she let Lex do whatever he wanted, so she answered she would just take me then. This time we passed some of the booths and I tried to slow down to look. One booth had stained glass on display, another had pretty dresses, and then we passed one with colorful whirlygigs and wind chimes. I begged my mother to stop to take a look at all the pretty things, not ever to buy, just to look, and she yanked my arm and said all the stuff was cheap and tawdry and I had to ask Lex what the word tawdry meant when we got back home. The following year I guess I didn’t eat lunch before we left the house so when we passed the food court, I asked my mother if I could have something to eat, it smelled so delicious and she said the food was diseased and would make me sick, even though from my little girl vantage I could see everyone was sitting and eating the food, how could it make people sick?”

“The next time we went,” Lena’s voice got lower in the darkness, “I just gave up asking if we could stop and just applauded when she was on stage and then would wait for her body guards to clear a path as my mother didn’t like to touch anyone there. Luckily I stopped going when I went off to boarding school and haven’t been back since. So yes, I have been to the festival, but never really got a chance to experience it.” Lena finished her story. She has been looking over Kara’s shoulder as she told her story, but now looked directly into Kara’s eyes when she said that last sentence. Kara was dumbfounded. What an awful childhood, she thought. Still, she knew Lena didn’t want her pity.

“Well, you haven’t truly experienced the Art and Wine Festival until you have experienced it through the eyes of the Danvers sisters,” said Kara, as upbeat as she could. Lena’s heart sank a little. Did Kara just say they were going to the Art and Wine Festival with her sister?

Kara answered her silent question in the next heartbeat. “Unfortunately Alex can’t make it Saturday. She has to work.”

“Oh that’s a shame,” said Lena, thinking it was anything but, her heart suddenly soaring.

“Does Saturday work for you? I can pick you up around 11:30 AM,” said Kara, “This way we can get there in time for lunch, there’s a whole food court full of different things, and as you walk around, you can find food trucks on the periphery. They are like little Easter eggs waiting for you to discover them, full of exotic food and fanciful names.”

“Hmmm, I’m sensing a theme here.” Lena joked.

“Oh, then don’t forget the snack carts, and the dessert palace…” said Kara excitedly, ignoring Lena’s joke.

 “Wait, did you just say dessert palace?”

Laughing, Kara said, “Well, it’s just an area where the desserts are but my sister and I nicknamed it the dessert palace the first time we saw it.”

“It sounds like a date,” said Lena. She shivered involuntarily in the chilly night air.

“Oh my gosh,” said Kara, “You’re getting cold, and it’s late, and here I have you out late on a school night.” Kara disentangled herself from Lena. Lena was about to protest she was fine when Kara sat up and threw off the blanket from both of them and now she really did feel cold, instantly missing feeling the warmth of Kara’s body. Kara quickly scrambled down the hood of the car onto the ground and grabbed the rest of the blanket off of Lena and balled it up in her arms.

It felt like Kara had simultaneously ripped off a band aid and thrown a bucket of cold water on her with the absence of her warmth and the missing blanket. Lena was slower to make her way down the car’s hood and Kara held out her hand again to help her off. She shoved the blanket into Lena’s arms and balled up the quilt. Kara went around her side of the car to the trunk and Lena followed around on her passenger side. Kara shoved the quilt in the truck and Lena handed her the blanket to stow. Did I do something wrong, thought Lena? First they were kissing and warm and then they were off the hood and putting away the blankets. The abruptness was jarring.

“Don’t you want to fold them?’ Asked Lena of the blankets.

“Nah, I’ll put them away tomorrow,” answered Kara as she slammed the trunk. Both women went to their respective car doors and opened them. They both busied themselves with putting on their seatbelts. Kara blasted the car’s heater and pointed all the vents at Lena. Then Kara reached behind Lena’s headrest to put her arm there and Lena felt secretly relieved that everything was okay when Kara propped herself out of her seat and used her arm as leverage to lift her body out of the driver’s seat to turn and look behind her as she guided the car in reverse. Then she sat back down again, removing her arm and shifted into drive and made her way slowly down the dirt incline. Lena replayed everything she had said to see what she had done to create this distance. Did she freak Kara out with that story she told about the Art and Wine Festival, she thought?

Kara reached the end of the dirt road and put on her blinker to turn right, even though there still were no other cars on the road. Then after she turned, Kara reached out her hand and laid it on Lena’s hands in her lap. She tugged one of her hands out and rested the back of her hand on Lena’s thigh, Lena’s hand on top. Lena looked at Kara and Kara glanced back with an easy smile.

Everything was okay. Kara wasn’t mad at her or freaked out. This was all in your head, Lena chastised herself. Way to spiral down, Luther. Your mother really did a number on you.

“What is you day like tomorrow?” asked Kara, her hand still linked to Lena’s. Lena was glad to get out of her own head.

“Well, I have three classes in the morning, and I really should go to them this time,” she gave Kara a pointed look. Kara cut her eyes over at Lena and smirked. “Then in the evening, I booked time at the physics lab, since, you know, no one goes there on a Friday night because they have a life and all, unlike poor old me.” Kara squeezed her hand, remembering Lena getting down on herself outside the Tech Museum. Was that just yesterday, she thought?

“Well, that works out for me, because my sister Alex is coming over to hang and watch a movie with me Friday night, as we haven’t seen each other that much lately. She has a new girlfriend and she is still negotiating how things are going.” Lena was relieved that her slavish attention to her work wasn’t going to be an issue before their second date.

Kara extracted her hand to put both hands on the steering wheel as they got back to the city and the roadways had more traffic. Kara found a parking spot about a block from Lena’s building. She parked and asked if she could walk Lena to her door again, making it clear she wouldn’t come in.

They made it to the hallway outside of Lena’s penthouse and Kara paused outside her door. Lena turned to her and stepped into her personal space. Kara instinctively wrapped her arms around Lena’s waist and tugged her toward her. Their lips met and Lena felt sparks shoot across her body. The kiss was passionate and searching. Kara instantly deepening the kiss as Lena’s hands went on either side of her ears, her fingertips nestling in her hair. Kara’s tongue licked at Lena’s lips and she parted them easily, both exploring each other. Soon Lena was out of breathe and pulled back slightly. Kara rested her forehead against hers. Was that even a thing Lena thought, touching foreheads? Could this be our thing?

“Wow,” was all Kara said, breathlessly.

“Yes, wow,” answered Lena back. She stayed in the moment for a few beats before reluctantly pulling away. “Good night,” she said softly as she turned away from Kara.

“Good night,” answered Kara, as Lena opened her door and paused at the opening. She gave a little wave and then was gone, closing the door quietly.

Overjoyed, Kara once again forgo the elevator for the stairs and hastily made her way to her car when she got outside. After parking outside of her building, she used her super speed to run up to her apartment, then change into her Supergirl outfit and fly out the window, her excess energy pushing her to fly over downtown. She hovered over National City for just a moment when she heard a burglar alarm go off in a building several miles away…

Chapter Text

Kara banged her alarm off and sat up in bed. It had been a late night of crime fighting on the mean streets of National City and she was feeling a little groggy. Coffee first, then shower she decided. She padded into her kitchen and started her coffee maker. She unplugged her phone from her charger and turned it on. It buzzed with a notification. It was from Lena. She poured herself a cup of coffee and opened the message. “Good morning,” it said simply, about 45 minutes ago.

“Good morning to you,” she texted back. “Aren’t you the early one?”

Kara was surprised when the phone rang. It was an incoming call from Lena.

“Lena,” Kara said laughing, by way of greeting. “Have you already achieved world peace this early in the morning?”

Lena laughed back. ‘No, just on my way to school. I know we said we weren’t going to see each other today, but I wanted to hear your voice.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of you”

“Have you had breakfast yet?” Lena asked.

“No, I was just going to jump in the shower and then…” there was a sharp knock on Kara’s front door.

“Would you excuse me, Lena, someone is knocking on my door,” she said as she turned the phone away from her ear. Kara was so surprised by the early morning knock that she forgot to use her x-ray vision to see who it was before she opened it.

As she tugged open the door, there stood Lena, both hands held up in the air, elbows bent. One hand held her phone. The other a greasy takeout bag.

“Surprise,” said Lena a little tentatively. She had thought this was a good idea when she woke up this morning but now she wasn’t sure Kara would like her surprising her at her apartment like this.

“Lena…” said Kara, looking at her, then down to her phone where she disconnected the call. She placed her hand with the phone against the door frame and with her other hand reached through the door, grabbed Lena’s wrist and pulled her into her apartment. “Get in her, you nut.”

Kara kicked the door closed and still using her hold on Lena’s wrist, pulled her closer, letting go and then wrapping her tightly in her arms. Lena placed both hands, full of phone and breakfast, behind Kara’s back. They kissed again, Lena’s full lips on Kara’s, Kara felt it all the way down to her toes. Lena could taste the fresh coffee on Kara’s breath, giving both of Kara’s lips her attention. Kara eventually broke off the kiss and placed her forehead against Lena’s. Yeah, this definitely is our thing, Lena thought.

“You are a good kisser. I didn’t imagine last night, then!” exclaimed Kara. Lena chuckled warmly.

“I hope you don’t mind I came over here unannounced,” said Lena, her insecurities rearing its ugly head. “I just couldn’t take not seeing you until tomorrow.” Kara nodded her head slightly, still touching foreheads.

“Lena, I have something to ask you,” Kara whispered.

Yes?” asked Lena, just as quiet, her head whispering all sorts of negative things to her.

Kara turned her head and murmured into her hair, “What is that delicious smell coming from that bag you are holding behind my back?”

Lena chuckled and broke out of the hug, secretly relieved. “This is a bear claw from Leonardi’s bakery,” she tapped her other hand against it. “Have you even been there?”

Kara almost answered no because that was on the Richie-rich side of town and just caught herself. Lena was Richie-rich. She kept forgetting that. So instead she answered plainly, “No, I haven’t been.”

“Well, you’re going to love it,” said Lena. “Where should I put this?” she asked as she held up the bag.

“Oh, come on in.” Kara led Lena into her kitchen and to the large island in the center of it. Kara turned to the cabinets and brought out a plate and placed it in front of Lena. “Coffee?” she asked, holding up an empty mug.

Lena stood opposite Kara. “Please.” Lena shook out the bear claw out onto the plate. Kara placed the steaming mug in front of Lena and looked at the large flaky pastry. It did indeed look like a bear claw. It had four round ‘toes’ with a silvered almond at each point to look like the claw of a bear. The pastry was also drizzled in a gooey icing. Kara turned around and grabbed two knives and forks out of her silverware drawer and placed them next to the plate.

“Silly,” said Lena, “You don’t use silverware to eat a bear claw. You use your fingers.” She reached out with both hands and broke off a ‘toe’ and popped it into her mouth.

When in Rome, thought Kara, who broke off a larger ‘toe’ and took a bite. “Ohf muy Gawd,” she said her mouth full of delicious dough. “This is incredible,” she said as she swallowed to be able to talk.

“Somehow I knew you would like it,” Lena smirked.

“This is a wonderful surprise indeed. Wait, how did you know where I lived?” asked Kara, suspicion aroused.

“Jeremy Jackson of the student affairs office strikes again,” said a sheepish Lena over the rim of her coffee cup, hoping she wouldn’t be mad.

Kara just laughed and broke off another piece of claw.

They chatted of favorite desserts and other things and 15 minutes later, over an empty plate, Lena said she needed to get going to school. Kara wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, having eaten the lion’s share of the bear claw and walked Lena to the door. Lena swiftly leaned in and pecked the corner of Kara’s mouth. “You had a little icing there,” she said, indicating with her finger at her own mouth.

“Sure,” Kara drawled out. “Thanks again for the breakfast and the surprise visit. Can’t wait to show you the Art and Wine festival tomorrow.” Lena turned in the doorway and gave a little wave, then left. Kara silently closed the door behind her. She better hurry with her shower if she didn’t want to be late for her classes. Good thing she could use her super speed to help her get ready in time.

---

Lena made it to her second class of the day, economics, with a few minutes to spare. She settled in her seat and felt her phone vibrate. She pulled it out and saw a notification from Kara. She opened the message and there was a picture of a squirrel on its hind legs with a caption underneath that said “I’m nuts for you.” Lena smiled. Then she looked closer, and enlarged the photo. That was the quad in the background. This was a real picture of a squirrel and not a meme Kara got off the internet. Lena could imagine Kara laying on her stomach, coaxing the squirrel to get on its hind legs. She probably offered it a nut, sweet talking it. Lena laughed at the thought. Unfortunately, she literally laughed out loud. The girl in the seat next to Lena turned her head at the unexpected outburst. Lena was slightly embarrassed. She should say something. What was her name again? Karen, Kirsten?

“Um, so, what did you think of the reading last night” asked Lena. “Do you think Adam Smith is the way to go?”

The girl looked surprised that Lena had spoken to her. After all, Lena hadn’t said a word the whole semester. “Well, I think the idea of government being hands off of an economy is admirable, but what do you do when the economy is not working for the majority of the people, such as the Great Depression of the 1930’s? I myself am a big fan of John Maynard Keynes, who believed that government could relieve unemployment and increase economic activity through appropriate tax policies and public expenditures.”

“Good point, Kristen,” said Lena, remembering her name just in time. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Kristen practically beamed, and sat up a little straighter at the compliment. Kristen, not wanting to end the conversation asked Lena how she did on the last test. They continued in that vein, pleasantly talking about the class until the professor walked in and asked for quiet.

“It was nice talking to you, Lena,” whispered Kristen.

“Nice talking to you too, Kristen,” Lena whispered back and then turned her attention to the front of the class. Just think, she told herself, if Kara hadn’t of sent her that picture of that squirrel, she wouldn’t have laughed out loud and then struck up a conversation with Kristen. Kara really did make everything better.

---

Alex juggled the pizza box and six pack of beer into one hand to knock on Kara’s door. “It’s open,” came Kara’s call to her sister.

The dark-haired woman managed to open and close the door without dropping anything and placed the beer and pizza on the kitchen island.  Kara, who had been chopping vegetables for a salad, placed the prepared bowl next to the pizza and then hugged Alex. Just because Kara had an unreal metabolism and craved junk food didn’t mean that Alex was able to keep up, and she appreciated that Kara wanted to mix in some healthy food groups to help Alex stay in shape for her job at the DEO.

“Oof, why do I feel like it’s been too long since I’ve seen you,” said Alex, hugging Kara tightly.

“Cuz your girlfriend Maggie has been monopolizing all your free time and I’m jealous,” answered Kara in a teasing tone, hugging Alex just as tightly but careful not to hug too tightly as Supergirl.

Alex grabbed the bottle opener on the counter and opened two beers, taking a long pull on hers. Kara grabbed two plates out of the cabinet. They exchanged plate and beer, a practiced dance. Alex opened the pizza box and grabbed a slice. Without looking at Kara, she said “You’ve been busy lately,” before taking a big bite of pizza that had everything on it but the kitchen sink, Kara’s favorite.

“Oh, you saw the crime sheet, did ya?” remarked Kara. Alex indeed had seen the crime sheet. The last two nights Kara had foiled three carjackings, stopped a bank robbery, a liquor store hold up, and four muggings, assisted in a car accident when the jaws of life couldn’t open a smashed up car, rescued eight people from two different burning buildings, tackled two thieves as they ran away from a crime scene, single-handedly stopped a gang war, found 20 kilos of drugs trying to be smuggled into the city down at the docks, and flew a knifing victim to the hospital before they bled to death. Alex knew from experience whenever Kara got so actively involved with crime she had excess energy to burn. And the fact it happened two nights in a row meant something was up.

“Anything going on you want to talk about?” said Alex, taking another bite of pizza and purposefully not looking at Kara.

“No,” said Kara quickly, reaching for the salad and putting some on her plate. Alex just waited. “Okay I met someone…”

“I knew it!” exclaimed Alex, happy for her sister, finally turning to look at her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Who’s the lucky guy or gal?” she stated because Kara was known to date both sexes and she didn’t want to presume.

“It is a she, and her name is Lena.”

“Tell me about her,” Alex coaxed, “What’s she like?”

“She is gorgeous, dark black hair and green eyes,” here Kara sighed. ”And ruby red lips….” Alex made an appreciative noise.

 “Not just gorgeous, she is so smart, I love talking to her. She knows so much about everything. The way she thinks about things, explains them, so different from everyone I‘ve ever met. And she’s brilliant,” said Kara dreamily.

“Where did you meet her?” asked Alex, her mouth full of pizza, smiling at her sister.

“At the campus coffee shop. Actually you two have a lot in common. In fact, I took her to the Tech Museum,” said Kara, using her fork to take bite of salad.

“You did?” said a surprised Alex. She turned and Kara locked eyes with her. It went unspoken between the two sisters that she must be special to Kara since the last time the two sisters had gone there they had had that awful fight.

Kara remembered the fight from several years ago as if it was yesterday. Kara had asked Alex to take her to the Museum for research for a high school project even though Alex had plans to hang out with her friends. Their mother had intervened and strongly suggested Alex take Kara, she could hang out with her friends another time. When Kara had pointed out the billiard balls that had jumped the rails on the perpetual motion machine, Alex had said she envied them. That they didn’t have to follow a predefined track and were finally free to go where they wanted. She said this while staring hard into Kara’s eyes, the implication that Alex had to follow a straight and narrow path and always take care of her adopted sister, never to step outside of her duties. The words still stung.

Alex broke the somewhat awkward silence by asking, “So she’s a student then? What is she majoring in?” She took a sip of beer.

“Well, business mostly…” trailed off Kara.

“Mostly, what do you mean by that?”

“She’s also getting a second degree in physics.” Kara turned away from Alex.

“Kara,” said Alex slowly, narrowing her eyes at Kara. “What is Lena’s last name?”

“And they are both master’s degrees, by the way...”

“What is her last name, Kara?” said Alex, through clenched teeth, setting down her beer.

“Alex, it’s not like that… she’s amazing, you would really like her.”

“What is HER.LAST.NAME?”

“Luther.” said Kara in a small voice. “Her name is Lena Luther.” Kara let out a breath she didn’t even realize she had been holding, deflating like a balloon.

“Kara, for God’s sakes,” said Alex, furious, quickly turning away from the counter, walking into Kara’s apartment. Then she just as swiftly turned back around and walked up to Kara. “Luther? A Luther,” she accused. “They hate Supers. Luthers try to kill Supers.”

“Alex, she is not like Lex Luther. She does not have his obsession with all things Super and she is on the side of good.”

“You don’t know that!” Alex said forcefully. She strode even closer to Kara.

“I do!” said Kara just as forcefully, standing up straight and tall, and matching Alex’s intensity. “And she’s not even a true Luther. She was adopted into her family… like me,” she purposefully gentled her voice on the last line.

Alex paused as Kara took a step back. Somehow the mention of being adopted made Alex stop and quell her anger. She knew being adopted held very many complicated memories for Kara, most of them painful. She was silent for a few moments. Then her anger, her indignation at a Luther being next to Kara, got the better of her and she just couldn’t help herself. She had to say it. “You can never tell her,” said Alex evenly.

“Alex…”

“I mean it Kara, you can never tell her.”

“Alex.” warned Kara sharply.

“Promise me you will never tell her,” Alex said back just as menacingly.

“I will do no such thing…” said Kara fiercely. The thing, the thing that Kara could never tell Lena that Alex was alluding to, of course, was that Kara was really Supergirl.

“You wanted to tell your first girlfriend Chelsey and look how long that relationship lasted?”

Kara stared hard at her sister. “Low blow, Alex.” She struggled to keep her tone even.

“Kara, oh my God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.” Alex did look contrite. “Telling anyone, a girlfriend or even a good friend puts their life in danger, and I know you wouldn’t want to do that to anyone.”

“So you and Dad and Clark tell me,” shot back Kara, referring to her cousin, whose real name is Kal-El on planet Krypton and known as Superman here on Earth. He was the first one to drill into Kara that she had to hide her abilities to protect those she loved. “I know I have only been Supergirl a few short years but am I supposed to go through life without a partner, a true partner, someone I can let in, someone who gets to know the real me, all of me?” This had been nagging at the back of her mind for the last few years and she just now gave voice to it, surprising even herself.

“Hey, no, Kara, I… I didn’t know you felt this way. Look, we’ll figure this out. And you will never be alone. I will always be at your side. I’m just saying to be cautious with those that you let close to you, okay? There are a lot of ways for both parties to get hurt.”

“Okay,’ Kara nodded looking at the ground. She loved Alex, she really did. But this might be the one thing she couldn’t know exactly how she felt.

“Hey, come here,” said Alex, holding her arms out. Kara stepped forward and let Alex hug her. Alex let Kara go and held her at arm’s length. “I tell you what, I’ll let you pick the movie tonight. Anything you want to watch, even if it is sappy, and God forbid, romantic.”

Kara gave a small laugh. “Anything?” and that was how they ended up on Kara’s couch under a shared blanket with a large bowl of popcorn between them watching La La Land. For the second time in six weeks. Kara only paid half attention to it. She did like the movie. The fact that it rankled Alex was only an added benefit. She just had other things on her mind.

The negative part about Supergirl, she thought, was the secret she had to carry. A secret that felt more like a burden. And sharing that secret could put someone in danger, she knew Alex was not wrong on that front. But this was still weighing on her. Sometimes she felt so alone. First she lost her planet and all she loved, and now she was doomed to be alone due to her secret. Did it truly have to be this way, she wondered for the 100^th time? Rather than wallow in her self-pity, for the rest of the movie, she let her mind be occupied by a certain dark-haired beauty and what the coming days might bring.

Chapter Text

Kara promptly pulled up in front of Lena’s building at 11:30 AM on a sunny but not too warm Saturday morning. Lena was waiting on the sidewalk. Kara took note that Lena was wearing jeans and a light gray sweater, her hair in a simple pony tail again. She had a small back-pack shaped purse hanging off one shoulder. When the car slowed then stopped, Lena didn’t even try to tug on the door handle. Kara quickly turned off the car engine and came around to open her car door, first embracing Lena in a quick hug. Kara was wearing a similar look of casual jeans and a light blue shirt with three buttons at the neck and three-quarter sleeves. Lena noticed Kara’s light blue shirt complimented her blue eyes, and she smiled her thanks as she got in the car.

Once they were well underway, Kara asked Lena about her lab last night. Lena surprised herself by sharing all of her insight from her time at the lab trying out Kara’s idea of building Nano tech crystals in a vacuum. Kara was fascinated by Lena’s machinations to make her idea come to fruition, the setbacks and work-arounds to solve for the road blocks. Soon Kara parked in a residential neighborhood. “I like to park a few blocks away from the Festival so we don’t get caught up in traffic when we leave,” Kara told Lena when she gave her a questioning look.

“You’re the expert,” Lena told her.

Kara directed them through the tree-lined streets. Lena could hear the sounds of a crowd as they drew nearer.

“Oh, look, it’s Taco Tuesday. We found one of the food trucks already!” exclaimed Kara with a wide grin, grabbing Lena’s hand and dragging her to the order window. They decided to get a platter of three small, round soft tacos as a “snack” as Kara put it, and sat on the curb to eat them. Lena ate one and Kara had the other two. They were flavorful with fresh ingredients, Lena noticed. She also knew she was going to have to pace herself in regards to food with Kara around. They wiped their hands and threw their trash away in a nearby container.

“Where should we go now?” Lena turned to ask Kara, but Kara was not there. Lena was confused until she felt something beating on her knees. She looked down and Kara was squatting on the ground, petting a large dog, a golden retriever Lena surmised, whose tail was currently hitting her. She took a step back.

“Who’s a good boy, yes you are, yes you are,” said Kara as she rubbed the dog all over. The dog licked her face and kept trying to leap up on her.

“She likes you,” said the couple who presumably owned the large dog and had a lax hold on the dog’s leash. “Come one Cinnamon, let’s leave the nice lady alone.” The man holding the leash finally tugged the dog away from Kara. Kara stood and waved, actually waved, at Cinnamon the dog, Lena noticed. The dog, with one last forlorn glance at Kara, reluctantly followed his owners in the opposite direction.

“Sorry about that,” said Kara as she noticed Lena’s standoffish behavior towards the dog. “Let’s go to this entrance here,” she gestured.

They walked through the park entrance and the multitude of festival booths filled Lena’s vision. The booths were mostly Easy-up-style pop up tents. Some had blue tarps clipped to the side to block the sun, but most were open on the sides, with tables underneath them full of their wares. She noticed the booths followed the sidewalk paths of the park and ringed the large lake in the middle of the park.

It was a little daunting to Lena. So many people, and it was still relatively early. “Let’s get in line for drink tickets. You want to try some of the local wine, right?” Kara pointed to a short line in front of a booth as Lena said yes. Kara explained that you had to buy a decorative wine glass with the name of the Art and Wine Festival etched on it and you also got two tickets for two glasses of wine. You could buy as many wine tickets as you wanted at this booth and then visited the wine booths scattered around the Festival, as long as you used the wine glass for refills. When they got to the front, the booth attendant asked to see Lena’s ID and then attached a yellow wrist band on her left wrist to signify she was of age for the wine. Kara insisted on paying as she had invited Lena on the date.

“Don’t you want a glass of your own?” asked Lena as they left the booth with just one glass.

“Well, I’m kinda embarrassed, but the taste of fine wine is lost on me. I guess I have a baby palette. The wine pourers always explain what makes the wine special, like this has hints of fruit or tastes like chocolate and all I taste is something yucky.” Not to mention the fact that earth alcohol has zero effect on her, she can never feel the pleasant buzz other people described or get falling down drunk on it. “They try to explain that is the tannins of a good red wine that has been carefully aged in a very expensive oak barrel, but it only tastes like tree bark or dirt to me, just so bitter. So I don’t drink wine.” Plus, as Supergirl, she couldn’t feel the alcohol and she never got to experience that pleasant ‘buzz’ people always talked about. But needless to say, she didn’t mention that to Lena.

They stepped next door to where a local winery was pouring glasses of wine. One of the workers at the booth explained the wine choices to Lena and she settled on a nice red. “This wine has hauntingly pure aromas of black fruits and violets with a just a hint of oak,” said the worker as he poured the wine in Lena’s glass. Lena glanced sideways at Kara and suppressed a laugh. Lena took a sip and agreed with the man pouring that it was delicious.

They turned and walked away from the wine booth. “And this wine has hints of licorice and clover that has been picked at midnight under a full moon,” said Lena holding up her wine glass, “and has been aged in the cellar of blind benediction nuns in a barrel made from the heart of the rare willow tree...” Kara let out an astonished laugh, and Lena continued, “That was lovingly grown by a trio of Trappist monks…”

“Lena,” laughed Kara again.

“One who only had one eye each…”

“Lena, stop it, you are killing me!” Lena gave Kara a sideway look, a smirk on her face.

“Yes, you captured how I feel about wine, a bit of pretentiousness of it all, well done, that cracked me up!” Kara complimented. “Wait, did the trio of Trappist monks have one eye on each or one eye between them?”

“How do you have one eye between a trio of monks?” asked Lena.

“I don’t know, you started it!” Kara said, playfully bumping her shoulder. “Should we start here?” she asked Lena, indicating a row of booths that had colorful clothing and jewelry displayed.

“Sure, whatever you recommend,” Lena said as she turned to Kara, who was bent down near the ground again, leaning back on her heels as three little Chihuahuas assaulted her by jumping up and trying to be the first to get in her lap.

“Oh look at you guys, you have matching collars and everything,” Kara said as the three little dogs competed to see who could get a pet from Kara’s hands.

“Come on guys, leave the lovely lady alone,” said the little dogs’ owners, tugging the three way leash away from Kara.

“Bye guys,” said Kara as the dogs were dragged backwards and eventually started to walk in the direction they were being lead. Kara stood. “Shall we,” she gestured Lena forward.

Kara guided Lena through the maze of booths as they strolled and window shopped. Kara was content to let Lena lead and take her time where she wanted. “What I like most from this Art and Wine Festival is that this is such a family affair,” said Kara as they perused a table with shiny necklaces.

“You mean families in the crowd?” Lena asked.

“That. And that a lot of the workers manning the booths are mostly family members. It’s kinda neat that they get to spend time together working at the Festival.” Kara picked up a necklace and then put it back down. They wondered over to a booth that sold hats of all shapes and sizes.

“Excuse me Ma’am, could I see that green hat with the feather that is up on the high hook?” asked an older shopper to the women ringing up a sale in the back of the booth.

“Sure, just a minute, let me finish with this customer,” said the booth owner. Kara was about to speak up and say she would be happy to reach up and get it when the little girl next to the booth owner, who had to be her daughter due to the high family resemblance, spoke up. “I’ll get it for her, Mama.” Kara looked at Lena and smiled at what she had just said about family members working the booths.

“No Maddie, I’ll get it for the nice lady in a minute,” her mother said distractedly. Then her current customer asked her a question about another hat and the little girl, Maddie, grabbed a tall metal chair from behind her mother and dragged it over to the front of the booth. It would have been so easy for Kara to just reach up and grab the hat in question, but the little girl, about seven or eight, looked so determined, so she stayed silent. Lena turned to look at the scarves on the table in the front of the booth.

“Well, aren’t you sweet,” said the older woman to the little girl. Maddie put the tall chair under the hat and climbed up. Then she reached up for the hat. But she just was a hair too short. She got up on her tip toes and scooted forward on the chair. She still couldn’t reach it, so she leaned forward on the chair. By now, Lena had turned to watch the little girl since Kara hadn’t taken her eyes off of her. And there she saw the problem. The chair was positioned just slightly too far away from the hat and by the little girl leaning forward… equal and opposite reactions…. Lena instinctively moved away from the child and chair. And as Lena predicted, the little girl had leaned too far forward on the chair and it tipped backwards away from her, she and the chair collapsing like jack knife and she started to fall. But Kara moved in a flash, stepping forward and catching the girl under the arm pits, holding her above the chair, which had clattered noisily on the sidewalk. Her mother looked up at the noise and came rushing over. “Maddie, what are you doing? Are you alright?” asked her mother, more to Kara, who was holding her daughter a few feet above the sidewalk. Kara quickly put the girl down and reached up and grabbed the hat in question that had started this all.

“Here you go, Maddie, here is the hat you were trying to reach,” said Kara to the little girl.

“Thank you,” beamed the little girl up at Kara. In the typical resiliency of kids, she didn’t seem to register her brush with injury just a second ago. “Here you go, Ma’am,” said Maddie to the customer who had asked to see the hat, handing it to her. Kara picked up the metal stool and placed it in front of her mother, who was still staring back and forth from the girl to Kara, a frown forming.

“Well, since you went to so much trouble to get this down for me, I think I will just have to buy it,” said the lady. “Can you ring me up?” she asked the mother.

“Yes, certainly,” said the mother, broken out of her reverie. “Thank you for making sure my daughter didn’t get injured,” she said to Kara as she picked up the chair. “And next time Maddie, wait for me and I will hold the chair so you can climb up on it safely to get down the hats, okay sweetie?” she said to Maddie, softening her voice and giving her a small smile meant just for her.

“Okay Mama,” Maddie happily agreed. The three of them moved back to the cash register and Kara looked at Lena and they both walked out of the booth.

“That was…” began Lena, but she didn’t get to finish as Kara bent down to pet a border collie. “Amazing.” She finished when Kara stood back up. “You were so fast. How did you catch her? That little girl?”

“What?” answered Kara, turning back to the booth where the action had just happened and then forward again. “Just in the right place at the right time, I guess. Hey look monkey charms!” Kara walked into the next booth that had a large display of plastic animals that could indeed be added to a bracelet or necklace, leaving Lena to stare after her in wonder.

---

After a few more rows of browsing, and two more dog pettings, Kara asked Lena if she was ready for lunch. Lena knew better than to say no. Lena used her second drink ticket to get a refreshing white wine, hints of elderberries grown in the shade of an Icelandic castle and honey lovingly cultivated by blind step sisters, she said to make Kara giggle, and what a beautiful sound it was. They walked over to the food court, and Kara had been right, there was a breathtaking amount of food diversity here, observed Lena. They decided to share a large Greek Salad with chicken. This way, Lena figured, she would only have to have a few bites and Kara would eat the rest. When their order was ready, they picked up utensils and paper napkins and started to weave between the diners to find an open table. It seemed everyone was stopping for lunch about now.

Finally Kara spotted a small table and two chairs and lead the way to them. After settling in, Lena realized the table was very small indeed, and when the pulled up their chairs, their knees were touching. Also, they both leaned over the salad to eat, their heads practically hitting each other. Lena could smell Kara’s shampoo. Scents of apple, and, well, Kara, drifted over her. It was way more intimate then it had a right to be in a crowd full of people. Lena might have eaten more than a few bites to stay this close to Kara.

After lunch, Kara guided them over to the pond and a new set of booths they had not yet visited. Kara touched her ear. On no, not now, she thought, listening to the transmission from the DEO. They needed her help “Hey Lena, I’m just going to go grab a churro, meet you back here in a few?” Lena was looking at some fascinating geodes and rock formations and agreed.

Kara walked quickly to the end of the row and then to a large set of bushes right outside the large aquatic center that was attached to the park. She ducked behind them and changed out of her civilian clothes and into her Supergirl costume in an instant. Her friend Winn, who she indeed had met in collage, was also recruited by the DEO for his expert computer skills and worked there part time. He had also discovered her secret. He was a genius with materials and had helped design her suit. He even made it so she could roll up her civilian clothes in air tight pouches in her cape to store them. She flew out of the bushes at super speed, so fast the naked eye of an earthling would not be able to track her, the whole costume change taking mere seconds.

Enroute to another park on the other side of town, she touched her ear again to talk to the DEO operator to get more details. A three-horned creature, about the size of a tank, one the department had never seen before, was currently ripping up lamp posts at a public park. It had hard, impenetrable skin, and they could not fell it with a tranquilizer dart, so they called her, the alien specialist, who herself was a special alien.

Kara flew over the park and spotted the creature immediately. The police had cleared away the public, so no one was in danger, in which Kara noted and was grateful. She spotted the DEO team on the ground, their black uniforms contrasting with the white support van. She called down that she was here and landed next to them. They gave her an update on the situation. She then flew off to assess what was happening.

The large creature had knocked down a lamp post and currently had it in its mouth, shaking its head back and forth. The end of the pole crashed into a park bench, demolishing it.

Right, Kara was going to put a stop to this right now. She flew down and barreled into its side with her shoulder. It knocked the animal sideways and it dropped the pole. It also made the creature, very, very angry and the creature appeared to grow three feet more in size, his horns lengthening and sharpening. It charged at Kara. Kara hovered off the ground, ready to take to the air over its three horns when a little girl, a Rigillian by the looks of the ridges on her forehead and blue skin, sprung out of the bushes between the creature and Supergirl.

“Spike, no!” said the girl, waving her arms. Kara’s stomach dropped. The creature was heading right for the girl. She instantly flew over and snatched the girl from behind and flew straight up in the air.

“What…” the girl startled. She twisted in Kara’s arms. “Supergirl!” she exclaimed when she processed who had their arms around her.

“It’s okay, I got you,” said Kara to the little Rigillian girl, thinking she was probably scared to be picked up and flown in the air. “That creature can’t get you.”

“Put me down,” cried out the girl, “I have to get to Spike.”

“Spike? You know this creature?” Kara peered over the girls shoulder to get a better look at her face.

“Yes, he’s my pet, now put me down!” she demanded. Kara looked down at the ‘Spike’ creature and noticed he was getting smaller and smaller as he looked up at the girl. Its horns got less pointy, and the creature’s face looked... happy? Kara flew a little lower to the ground, ready to take to the sky again if the creature made any sudden movements. Spike was now they size of a large puppy.

“Jmanda!” cried out two Rigillian adults, coming up the path. They had identical ridges on their forehead and blue skin. Kara landed, with one eye on Spike. She let go of the girl and the two parents instantly engulfed her in a hug. Her mother dropped to her knees and took ahold of her shoulders. “Don’t you ever do that again, Jmanda” she admonished, shaking the girl’s shoulders slightly.

“Is that thing still a danger?” asked Kara of the parents about the creature.

“Supergirl!” said the father. “Thank you for protecting our daughter.”

“I didn’t need protecting, Dad, it was just Spike,” countered the girl.

“Just a sec honey. My name is Exsine Fav’ready, and this is my mate GZilleia” he said to Supergirl, holding out his six fingered hand. Kara shook it with no reservation. “Spike here is our pet that we keep at my brother’s farm up north.”

“What is it called? Is it Rigillian? I have never seen a creature like this,” she asked.

“We gave it the earth name of Braverten, as your earthlings are not able to say its name properly. We named it such because on my home planet, it is used as a pet and a… sort of watch dog, as you say, and will bravely protect its master. It can enlarge itself to do battle if it feels threatened or someone it loves it in trouble. As I said, we keep it up on my brother’s farm where it has room to roam and other animals to play with. Jmanda, my daughter here,” he said looking back at his wife and daughter who now was holding a small, harmless Spike that fit in her arms. “She overfed him so he would be sleepy then smuggled him in the back of our car in some blankets as we drove home. We didn’t know it, I swear an oath to you. She must have carried it into the backyard and was throwing his favorite stick to play a game I believe you call fetch and a car alarm went off. He must have gotten scared of the noise. We heard Spike growling from inside the house and rushed out to see him enlarged and breaking through our wooden fence. We tracked him to the park, after telling our daughter to stay at the house,” here he turned again to glare at his daughter.

“Why was he tearing up lamp posts?” asked Kara, who had noticed two more of them uprooted on her flight in to the park, in addition to the third one behind them.

“Jmanda, as I mentioned was playing fetch with his favorite green stick before he got scared by the loud noise, so perhaps he thought the green lampposts where a... stick to fetch? Anyway, we saw you try to subdue him, and then our daughter came out from the bushes. Thank you for keeping her from harm and not hurting our Braverton.”

“You’re wel-” began Kara, but was cut off when two policemen came running from just over the hill. “Hold it right there, you aliens,” bellowed a portly cop. Kara already didn’t like him. She also saw the DEO team approach from the other side. The team lead was a Sergeant she had met before, Stephanie Salter. Both parties reached them at about the same time.

“You’re all under arrest,” he shouted, gesturing to the three Rigillians, Spike, and, it looked like Supergirl, too. Supergirl turned to Stephanie.

“Sergeant Salter, this is Exsine Fav’ready, a Rigillian. And that little thing is his pet, called a Braverton. It is like a guard dog and when it gets scared or threated, it grows bigger to protect its loved ones. It normally lives on a farm but his daughter,” she gestured at the little girl who was now sitting on the sidewalk cradling a small and definitely not ferocious looking Spike in her lap. “Smuggled him back to the city.”

“Right, I’m going to take that beast into custody,” bellowed the portly cop. His colleague had the decency to look embarrassed for him.

“NO!” shouted Jmanda, hugging Spike around the neck. Spike grew a little, his horns adding inches and what could only be described as hackles grew across his back.

“No one is taking Spike. Jmanda, tell Spike it’s okay,” Kara instructed quickly.

“Yes Jmanda, it is fine. Supergilr will not let them take Spike away from us,” said her father, looking Supergirl in the eye. Jmanda petted Spike and he started to shrink again.

“Sergeant Salter,” tried Kara again, turning to the DEO officer, “The Braverton is not a threat anymore and Exsine will take the Braverton back to a farm several hours away from here. Clearly the danger is over.”

“What about all them lamp posts he knocked down, and that smashed bench?” The belligerent cop waved his arms. “Who’s going to pay for all that, then?”

“Honorable Office,” said Exsine to the officer, and Kara thought he was being generous. “I run a construction and electrical crew. I can have them out here within the hour to fix the lamp posts and build a new bench. At no cost to the city. I will pay for it all and make it right, as it was my animal that caused the damage.” He looked back at Supergirl to confirm that would be okay.

“That sounds fair to me,” said Sergeant Salter, speaking for the first time. “Exsine, my department has never seen a creature like yours. We would like to drive you and your family back to the farm where it residues and take some photos to catalog it. Will you permit us to do that?”

“Now wait a minute,” said the cop, feeling like his authority was being usurped.

“Jmanda and I can go with them,” said his mate, GZilleia. “This way you can stay here to guide the crew to repair the damage, Exsine.”

“That is a prudent suggestion,” said Exsine to his mate.

“Wait,” tried the office again, clearly not happy with the way things were turning out and that the aliens were off the hook.

“Officer Kowalski,” said Stephanie, reading his name tag, “Can you handle putting up yellow tape to keep out the public from the downed lampposts?” Kara glanced surreptitiously at Stephanie. By subtlety phrasing that request as a question as if he could do it or not, he very well couldn’t say no. It would look like he could not complete the simple request. She was impressed at her thinking.

“Yeah, sure,” he bit off.

“Excellent. Officer Hera, please assist Exsine to put together his crew and make sure he has everything they need to complete the work safely.” She gave Officer Kowalski a pointed look, letting him know he would not be harassing the alien as he worked. “Dale and Smith, please escort GZilleia and her daughter Jmanda, plus Spike, back to the farm and run a standard diagnostic file on the creature, calmly and safely so he doesn’t horn you,” She winked at them.

“Yes Ma’am,” they replied.

“Sergeant, if I am not needed anymore…”

“Yes Supergirl, thank you for your assistance.”

“Bye Supergirl,” said Jmanda, waving.

Kara gave a wave back. “Take care of Spike, and make sure he stays on the farm where he will be safe.”

“I will,” she promised. With that, Kara took to the skies and flew back to the Art and Wine Festival as fast as she could, which was really, really fast. She landed in the bushes and changed back to her civilian clothes in a blink of an eye, not that anyone could see it. The next part was a little risky, though. She flew out of the bushes at Super Speed. She flew through the churro booth, dropping a crumpled five dollar bill by the cash register and grabbed a churro at a speed so fast, no one could see her. The girl at the cash register DID feel a breeze blow past her, though. Then she noticed a crumbed bill next to the cash register. How did that happen, she thought, quickly reaching for it and smoothing it out and adding it to the cash register. If her Aunt saw that she left money out of the register, she would skin her alive.

Kara landed in a clump of trees and walked out of them taking a big bite of the churro so no one would be any wiser of her super-fast flight. She stood still for a few seconds as she listened to all the heart beats at the Festival. Then she slowly discarded them one by one until there was one remaining. A very certain someone, whose signature beat she could literally pick out of a crowd. She walked the two rows over and up behind Lena. “Sorry I took so long, hoo boy, the line for that churro wagon!” she said by way of greeting to Lena.

Lena turned around with a smile. “No problem, I was enjoying window shopping.”

“Do you want a bite?” Kara waved her half eaten churro in front of Lena. Lena put her hand on top of Kara’s hand to steady it and took a large bite of the cinnamon treat, her eyes looking up at Kara as she did so. Kara’s throat suddenly went dry. She was saved when a large German Shepard jumped up and placed both paws on her arm to also try to get a bite of the churro.

---

They walked down a few more rows. They passed a booth selling water and Kara asked if it is okay if they stop to buy a bottle. After Lena declined, Kara bought two. She cracked open one and drained it in a few swigs, as fighting Spike had made her thirsty. She deposited the bottle in a nearby recycling bin and then turned towards Lena. “You know, do you mind if we go back down this row? I saw a necklace I was interested in and didn’t buy, but now I think I changed my mind,” said Kara.

“Of course,” answered Lena easily. She would love to buy Kara a necklace. Buy her all the necklaces. They turned and went back the way they came. “What does it look like?”

“It is a silver chain and it had a large crescent moon charm, and several smaller star charms around it.”

That sounds like something Kara would like. “Where was it you saw it?” asked Lena.

“I’m not entirely sure anymore, I think around these three booths,” she stopped and gestured at the display stands. “Why don’t you check in the back there and I’ll check up front around these booths.” Lena agreed and started to look in earnest. She so wanted to find this necklace for her. After a few minutes of intently peering in to display cases, she made her way to the front of the booth but didn’t see Kara. She started to turn to the next booth when her eye was caught by blonde hair about 10 feet away from the entrance of the booth on some grass. She turned just in time to see Kara kneel down next to an elderly man in a wheel chair. Lena maneuvered a little so she was not in Kara’s line of sight.

She watched as Kara stuck out her hand and just barely heard Kara introduce herself. The elderly man shook it and said his name is Bill. Kara said to him that he looked a little hot and asked if she could roll him back to the shade a few feet behind him. He tried to turn his head but had to turn his whole body to get a view of the tree and shade behind him. He turned back and said loudly he was waiting for his daughter Sheila to come back from shopping. Bill seemed to fit the profile of someone who was hard of hearing and speaking loudly. Kara, still on bended knee with one arm on his wheel chair arm and the bottle of unopened water under her other arm, started to talking louder due to Bill leaning forward and cupping his hand against his ear, confirming Lena’s suspicions. She pointed out that his daughter will still be able to find him when she comes back if he is in the shade. He finally acquiesced and Kara stood up and went behind his wheelchair to pull him backward. Lena ducked back inside the booth, not quite sure why she was hiding from their interaction.

After Bill was settled, Kara turned and crouched down again. Lena moved out from the booth again to watch. She heard Bill agree he felt better in the shade. Then Kara asked Bill if he would do her a favor. She went to buy one bottle of water and the cute boy at the counter had started to flirt with her and insisted she take the second bottle for free. But she didn’t want to drink it and now it was a bother to have to carry it around. Would Bill please take the bottle from her? Lena can hear the lie from where she stood, Kara most definitely should not play poker, but Bill, hard of hearing, couldn’t hear her subterfuge. He agreed if it will help her, and called her young lady, and Kara assured him it would. She cracked open the seal and handed the bottle to him. He took the cap all the way off and drained about a third of it in one long pull. Kara finally stood up and he shook her hand again. Lena ducked into the next booth and pretended to look at the necklaces on the table. She felt a touch on her elbow and turned. “Any luck?” asked Kara.

Lena turns. “None. You?” She waited for Kara to tell her about the man in the wheelchair.

“Nah, maybe this isn’t where I saw it. Anyway, it’s a little like finding a needle in the haystack. Why don’t we keep exploring the other booths? I think I missed my chance when I didn’t buy it the first time around,” said Kara, completely glossing over the fact that she had helped the elderly man.

“Only if you’re sure,” said Lena, searching her face to see if Kara wanted to claim her good deed. After they passed a few booths, it was clear to Lena that Kara wouldn’t and she didn’t ask. Kara bent to pet what Lena thought can only be described as a brown knock-kneed mutt with patches of fur missing. Kara still gave it all the love.

Chapter Text

They turned into a row that featured artist’s booths. Lena wandered into the first one, and the blue easy-up tent had pegboard walls with paintings filled with shapes on them. Kara hung back near the entrance. This was a little out of her league, she felt. She never really understood ‘Modern Art.’ Lena glanced around and noticed Kara still at the front of the booth. She walked back. “Not interested in abstract art?” Lena asked.

“No, it’s not that. I … I’m... I’m not sure I know what ‘good’ art is,” she admitted. Lena looked at her and then turned to walk out of the booth, Kara in tow.

“Do you mean by subject matter, or genre?”

“See. That’s the thing,” the blonde girl said, “I don’t know. I mean look at this canvas,” she said, gesturing to a painting with abstract forms of colors. “I don’t know what this is, if it’s any good or not. It’s not something out of real life. How can you tell?”

“Well, I think the word ‘good’ is subjective here,” said Lena as she considered the painting. “And is the age old question, having been asked by many art scholars over the years. Some people focus on subject matter, and prefer to have a more realistic look, and have a hard time with a painting like this that is just free form, sort of like looking at clouds. They would rather have a landscape with clouds in the sky and grass on the ground. They want their subject matter to be realistic, such as landscape, portraiture, still life, religious themes, historic events… But realistic subject matter can also be subjective and the feelings that one responds to it can be different for each viewer.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kara.

“Take for example this painting here,” said Lena, pointing to a small canvas in the next booth. It was a slightly cartoonish version of an elephant in a circus tent balancing all four legs on a yellow ball with a blue star, trunk upraised. The vantage point was from below the elephant looking up at it. A red tent surrounding it. “To some, this looks like a happy elephant putting on a show, and might bring up fun memories of attending a circus. To another, they might be incensed that the animal is seemingly forced to perform unnatural tricks, knowing now that cruelty was often forced on circus animals to perform. And another person might feel scared, as the vantage point is looking up at a humongous elephant like a small child might do, and perhaps they were scarred at an early age by seeing the large animal up close when at a big top show when they were younger.”

“Okay, I get that each of us brings our own baggage to the art we view, but that still doesn’t help me figure out if a piece of art is good or not. I mean, how do they decide what goes in a museum or not?” said Kara turning to Lena.

“Fair question. As a scientist, I try to draw on the universal elements of art and rank the painting how well it fills out certain categories, and then decide which categories are important to me.”

“Now what does that mean?” asked Kara, laughing a little but certainly intrigued.

“Well, there are some universal categories you can use to look at a painting, composition, color, line, shape, focal point, technique, balance or symmetry…”

“Symmetry?” questioned Kara, her ear catching on the last word.

“Yes. Here, let’s go back to that first booth,” said Lena, tugging Kara’s hand. Lena stopped them in front of a square canvas, roughly four feet by four feet. On it were brightly painted colored squares in straight rows on a stark white background. Eight by eight if Kara is counting correctly, but she is a little distracted by her hand still in Lena’s. “This painting’s composition is perfectly symmetrical. If I could fold it in half length ways like a piece of paper, the squares would touch and perfectly line up. If I could fold this canvas in half width wise, the squares would still line up. Perfectly symmetrical. A lot of people are drawn to this type of painting as it is perfectly symmetrical across the x and y axis and feels balanced. And although its subject matter is abstract, or not relating to the real word, it is aesthetically pleasing and visually satisfying.”

Lena moved over to another canvas, still holding Kara’s hand. “This painting has symmetry on the Y axis.” Kara noticed the shapes looked like they were stacked on top of each other. “If I folded the canvas lengthwise, the shapes line up and touch each other like in a mirror, but not if I fold it width wise. So it has pleasing balance but not full symmetry. Now compare those two canvases to this one.”

Lena moved to the back of the booth. This canvas was about a foot tall and four feet wide, an odd shape to Kara’s eyes, who was used to more rectangular canvases. The background was again white, but on the left hand side was a bunch of jumbled monochromatic gray shapes, all piled up on top of each other, as if they had fallen. On the right hand side was a single small red circle. “This is not balanced at all,” said Lena.

“I can see that,” said Kara, oddly disquieted by it.

“All the shapes are on the left feel heavy to me. It feels like that end of the canvas is getting ready to fall off. There is nothing on the right hand side to balance it out. The singular red shape is not enough. And why are the shapes on the left gray and the one shape that is on the right a bright red, anyway? There is a tension about the painting. My eyes keeps going back and forth between the white space between the two sides. My fingers itch to pick up this painting and shake it and get some of the shapes on the left over to the right to balance it out.”

Kara laughed. “I do too, now that you mention it.”

“So this is not good, then?” Kara asked. Kara glanced briefly at the artist off to the side talking to a potential customer. She led Lena out of the booth so as not to insult the artist.

“I wouldn’t say it’s good or bad. Some people might like the tension of the painting. I was just trying to point out that composition is an important part of a painting and that symmetry is pretty universally pleasing.”

“But...” began Kara.

“Okay,” said Lena, heading off her question,” Here’s what I like to do when looking at art. I like to ask two questions. Is this interesting and does it draw my eye, and then ask would I like to own it or not.”

Kara looked at Lena questioning, as she realized Lena had dropped her hand and she missed the contact.

“Come over here,” Lena grabbed her bicep this time, her strong, firm bicep, Lena noticed, and led them to another booth that they had already walked past. “Look at this canvas.” The canvas in question is square, with a pleasing blue background. However slashes of orange, red and yellow paint cut vertically through the canvas.

“I like this color blue, medium cerulean, I think. But the splashes of color drew my eye. Most of the slashed lines are orange. And blue and orange are on opposite sides of the color wheel, and are called complementary colors. Complimentary colors vibrate visually when placed next to each other. They are jarring, aggressive, disconcerting, even. This canvas has a lot of energy, frenetic even. My eye is certainly drawn to it. However if I brought it home and placed it above my couch, I would be unhappy. I would come home from school after a long day and this painting would be vibrating in my living room, setting me one edge and I couldn’t relax.”

Lena moved away as Kara stared after the painting, feeling the painting vibrate as Lena described. “Now this one…” said Lena, who had walked over to another canvas. Kara quickly joined her. “Even though the subject matter is rounded abstract shapes, similar to clouds, the artist choose a color palette of greens, purples and blues. These colors play well together and don’t vibrate. They give me a very peaceful feeling looking at it, even though there is nothing realistic for my eye to latch onto. I could see this hanging over my couch, and when I come home after a long day, could sit underneath it and feel at peace.” Lena stopped and turned to Kara. “Did you know that some doctor’s offices and mental health clinics paint their walls with blues, greens and lavender shades as they are thought to have a calming effect?”

“Uh, no.” answered Kara very non-eloquently. Truthfully, Kara was blown away. She can feel the peacefulness of the canvas Lena had just described. She felt the vibration of the blue and orange line painting. She still felt slightly queasy from that canvas that had all the shapes on one side, a single red ball on the other mocking her. She has never been made to feel about art like this.

“Wow... thank you, Lena.” said a slightly shell-shocked Kara, as she tried to voice what it was she was feeling. “No one has made me see so many layers of a simple painting.”

Lena smiled. Kara smiled back.

“Probably the most amazing painting I ever saw was Monet’s Water Lilies at the New York Met. They were painted with a palette of greens, blues, purples and lavenders, similar to this one,” said Lena. Indicating the abstract painting with her chin.

“What made that painting so special?” Kara asked, as they walked side by side to the next booth full of art.

“It was actually a series of three canvases. Side by side, each six feet long and about three and a half feet tall. It spanned about two of these booths,” Lena gestured with her hands. “They were painted in the last decade of Monet’s life, when his eye site was failing. They are not done in a realistic style, but rather as an impression of water lilies. In fact. Monet was the father of Impressionism.”

“Ohhh, I’ve heard of that,” said Kara.

“Yes, he painted a painting in 1874, when outdoor painting was considered crass or too middle class, that gave name to the genre. He painted a sunset on the water outside, and instead of painting it in a realistic manner, he made no attempt to hide his brush strokes so you are aware of paint on canvas, and yet you instead got the impression of the way sunlight reflects of water. He called it ‘Impression, Sunrise.’ Here, let me show you.” Lena quickly pulled out her phone and pulled up the picture to show Kara. It was as Lena said. It wasn’t realistic, but Kara could totally recognize shapes that looked like boats in the harbor and orange brush strokes that approximated the sunset reflection of light off of blue water.

“Oh, I see that he used orange brush strokes for the sunlight reflection painted over blue water, which causes a vibration of the eye, as they are two complimentary colors, which I just discovered their existence five minutes ago,” said an excited Kara.

Lena chuckled. “You are a fast learner.”

“So did Monet use complementary colors in his water lilies?” Kara asked, wanting to know more about these paintings.

“No, he used the calming color palette of the greens, blues and purples, but what was so amazing is he didn’t put a horizon line on these particular paintings.”

Kara turned to her with a questioning look.

“Come over here,” said Lena, tugging on Kara’s arm again, dragging her back to a booth they had just walked past. Apparently, there was a lot of touching involved in looking at art, Kara thought. If someone had told her this sooner, she would have become a fan a long time ago.

Lena stood in front of a canvas of a river scene. The river was front and center, with trees appearing on either side, and the sky held fluffy white clouds. “So in this painting, we see the horizon line very clearly,” she said, running her finger a few inches above the canvas. “In fact, it’s practically in the middle of the composition. We see water below it and clouds very obviously above it. While the scene is not 100% realistic looking, we can definitely tell what the subject matter is and where earth and sky meet.” Lena walked out of the booth again.

“In the Monet Water Lilies, when you look at it, there is no horizon line, no sky. It’s like you are looking down from a bridge into water. Except, is that the pond or is that the sky reflected back? You are disoriented a little, yes the color combination draws you on. The colors are peaceful and cool. You feel like you are standing next to cool water. And after staring at it for a while, you think am I looking down on water with sky reflected, or am I underwater looking up at the sky? And the size of the canvases overwhelm you, engulf you and make you feel small, but in a good way, like you are enveloped in the cool colors. You feel like you are surrounded by nature instead of in an art museum. The first time I saw them, I realized I had been staring non-stop and when I checked my watch, I realized I had been looking at the paintings for over 30 minutes without stopping. Time seemed to stop counting.”

“Wow, that sounds like some powerful paintings” murmured Kara, making a mental note to look up Monet’s painting of Water Lilies the next time she was on her computer.

“Come on, let’s see which pieces of art draw our attention and which ones we would want to take home,” said Lena, grabbing Kara’s arm. Kara didn’t even mind as she was lead onto the next booth.

---

Two and a half hours (and four dog pettings) flew by. Kara had never enjoyed herself more looking at art. Or the company looking at the art that was next to her side, shoulders sometimes brushing, hands sometimes tangling.

They left the art booths and rounded a bend in the sidewalk. There was a sidewalk path before a small hill leading off to the left. “Are there booths down here?” Kara said, peering down the path. Her eye caught on movement and she walked toward it. It was indeed a booth. Or rather two booths before several large construction signs intended to keep people out ended the sidewalk and stopped the path from connecting back around to the pond. Lena was close behind Kara who stopped to look at the first both full of kite tails, pin wheels and ribbons streaming in the wind. “Oh, this must be a Kite Booth,” said Kara.

“Yes, too bad about the path being under construction,” pointed out Lena. “With no connecting path, traffic is really cut off and no one knows these two booths are back here.”

“I wonder what this is,” murmured Kara, running her hands over a long piece of colorful nylon fabric attached to a plastic stick that was blowing in the wind.

“It’s a ribbon streamer,” said a little girl of nine or ten that suddenly appeared at Kara’s elbow. “You hold it by this handle and move it around,” she said as she took the black plastic handle that was similar to a thin wand out of the metal rack holding it and began waving it in the air. The wind blew the long nylon ribbon, about six feet long, out from the wand and as she waved it, it dipped and flowed behind her.

“Neat,” said Kara, grabbing another wand out of the holder and moving slightly away from the girl so as not to tangle their long ribbons. Kara shook it as the breeze carried the ribbon out and away from her, creating waves of color.

“Ah, she’s my best salesman,” said a kindly man with glasses that came out from the back of the booth.

“Oh, is she your helper today?” asked Kara, thinking she must be a relation to the man.

“No, she works in the booth next to mine. I’m John by the way, I own ‘Kites and Things.’ Just give me a holler if you need any help,” he said to Kara. Kara peered deeper into the booth and saw many kites hung up in the rafters of the ceiling of the booth, some with long colorful tails.

“And I’m Esmerelda!” said the little girl. “I work in my Mom’s booth right next door.” She tilted her head at a woman in the back of the second booth who had jet black hair that matched hers, who was finishing up with a customer and was oblivious to the four people who turned to look at her.

“She designs custom jewelry for little kids like me. I would always go to fairs or stores and see necklaces or bracelets with kids’ names already on them and they never had my name because Esmerelda is such an unusual name. It means emerald in Spanish. So she came up with this whole idea to make necklaces out of little letters so anyone could get any name spelled out. See?” Esmerelda said as she pointed her ribbon streamer towards the ground and lifted her necklace with her other hand. White square letters were strung together like beads on a black thread around her neck and they indeed spelled out Esmerelda.

“I see. Thank you for showing me, Esmerelda,” said Kara, making sure to use the name the little girl was proudly displaying. “My name is Kara and this is Lena,” said Kara to both John and Esmerelda. Lena gave a little wave.

“It’s a shame they have you tucked back her with the construction on the sidewalk. It doesn’t look like you are getting a lot of foot traffic,” Lena said to John.

“Oh it’s terrible this year. Normally I have huge crowds of smiling kids and parents, grandparents wanting to buy kites for their grandkids. But his year no one can find us. My sales are way down. I complained to the booth committee but they said there was nothing they could do,” he tutted as he shook his head.

“Kara, can you do this,” said Esmerelda, who had moved away from the three adults to wave her ribbon streamer above her head in wide circles, the ribbon dancing and circling, as if a living thing responding to her touch.

“Let me see,” said Kara, moving to the small hill in front of the Kite Booth, waving her streamer over her head.

“Yes!” cheered on Esmerelda.

“Now, can you do this?” challenged Kara, moving her wand in large circles to the left and right of her, creating  a never ending figure eight of ribbon, surrounding herself in color.

“That’s so cool,” said Esmerelda, who had also moved to the small hill. “Let me try!” They took turns coming up with waves and compacted shapes with their ribbons streamer, each trying to imitate and then outdo the other.

Lena, who was still at the Kite Booth, took out her phone to take pictures of the two figures slightly above her. As she pointed her camera up the hill, the sky caused the two figures to be blacked out against the bright sky, silhouetted. At first she was disappointed she wasn’t getting the colorful flash of the ribbon streamers. But after taking a few pictures the black figures against the sky were very dramatic. Well, at least the pictures she took of one tall and lanky silhouette against the sky.

The fact that Kara and Esmerelda had moved to the hill meant people walking by on the main sidewalk could see them, even if the booth was still hidden.

“Mommy, Mommy, look at the pretty colors,” Lena heard a child cry. “Oh, I want to play with one of those, Mommy,” called out another. Esmerelda stopped moving and turned to the small crowd that had gathered to watch her and Kara and called out, “You can get your ribbon streams at ‘Kites and Things’ right down this path, pointing with the handle of the ribbon streamer. Lena heard a murmur run through the crowd and saw several families make their way to John’s Kite Booth.

“Hey, Esmerelda, let’s make up a dance to do with the ribbon streamers,” suggested Kara.

“Okay,” agreed Esmerelda.

“What are some of your favorite moves?” asked Kara. Esmerelda and Kara worked together for the next few minutes to choreograph a dance routine. Esmerelda would call out whenever the crowd got to be around 10 people or more to check out John’s shop, as well as her Mom’s. Then the pair slowly worked through their routine, each moving in tandem as they practiced.

Lena noticed that half that came to check out the shop bought something. The ribbon streamers being the most popular selling item, of course. She also saw that half of that crowd that stopped at the Kite Booth also wandered next door to the booth owned by Esmerelda’s Mom and browsed. About a quarter of them bought something, either a premade bracelet or made their own necklaces spelling out their own unique names or sayings.

Lena turned her attention back to the two ribbon streamers moving on the hill and the humans controlling them. Kara and Esmerelda did their dance routine one last time, and it was as if they had be practicing for weeks instead of minutes, each moving in near perfect synchronicity with each other. Lena took a few more photos. When they finished their dance and bowed their heads, an even larger crowd had gathered and now clapped. “Oh, thank you,” said Kara, not aware such a large gathering was watching them. Kara held her hand out to Esmerelda, and she took it. Then Kara raised their joined hands and bowed and Esmerelda followed her lead. They bowed a second time, hands clasped, to swelling cheers.

Esmerelda let go of Kara’s hand and again made her pitch to direct the crowd to the Kite Booth. Kara laughed and shook Esmerelda’s hand in congratulations and then walked over to Lena at the Kite Booth, winding up the six foot long ribbon streamer. Esmerelda had moved to the crowd and was now showing her necklace to several small girls and pointed down the path to her Mom’s shop.

“Thank you so much,” John said, coming over to Kara. Esmerelda followed a few seconds later. “You drove so many people to my booth in those few short minutes. I sold more ribbons streamers than I had all day!” he proudly exclaimed, waving his arm to indicate the three different families still in his booth.

“And I think you’re going to sell one more,” said Lena. “We’ll take this one,” she said nodding at the one in Kara’s hand. “Oh, and the one Esmerelda has as well. Thank you for teaching Kara how to use it,” she said, turning to the young girl. “I am sure you will get a lot of enjoyment out of having your own.”

“Really?” asked the girl brightly, youthful optimism written all over her face.

“Hold on a minute,” said an angry voice from behind their little group. It was Esmerelda’s mother. She walked up to the front of their booths and turned to Esmerelda. “Where have you been? I finally had a lot of customers come to the booth and needed you help,” said Esmerelda’s mother to her daughter. “And don’t think you are getting a free ribbon streamer from this lady,” she said flashing her eyes at Lena. “We’re not a charity case,” she said pointedly to Lena.

“Now Isabella,” said John gently.

Lena held the woman’s gaze for a few beats then said to the woman, “You got a really crummy deal with your booth back here with all the construction on the sidewalk.”

The women, slightly taken aback, agreed with Lena. “Yeah, those guys at the planning commission wouldn’t move my booth and won’t even refund some of my booth fees,” she complained.

“Without the traffic coming from the lake you are effectively cut off from the rest of the festival,” Lena agreed.

“Exactly!” snarled the woman, It was not lost on Kara that the woman who had been angry at Lena just a minute ago was now agreeing with her.

“Isabelle was it? My name is Lena and this is Kara,” she said looking back at the blonde. “Esmerelda told us about your business and how you started it because you couldn’t find anything with Esmerelda’s name printed on it.”

“Yes,” agreed the woman, “I wanted her and other kids with unique names be able to have something special.”

“I’m majoring in business at National University and we have been studying different business models. Preprinting things like child-size license plates or keychains or necklaces with common names are an easy and fast ways to make a quick buck. I really like how you are covering a niche market that not a lot of people have thought about. And have been successful at it,” Lena finished.

“Well, thank you,” the women preened slightly at the compliment.

“Now, I know Esmerelda was supposed to be helping you in your booth today but when she went to the hill with her ribbon streamer, she gathered a crowd to watch her and then she was savvy enough to direct people to John’s booth to check out the ribbon streamers. And then I noticed some of the crowd came to your booth,” said Lena.

“It’s true,” said John, trying to placate Isabella. “She gave me so many customers when she was visible on the hill. More than I had all day. You, too, Isabella” he pointed out.

“John, I have a business proposition for you and Esmerelda,” said Lena. All four people in their group turned towards her waited to hear what Lena was proposing. “If Esmerelda borrows your ribbon streamer and goes to the hill every half hour for five minutes and gathers a crowd and sends customers back here, she can earn her very own ribbon streamer. She can start today, but the festival is almost over. If she continued tomorrow, and you sell more than 20 ribbon streamers, then she will have earned her free ribbon streamer.” Lena was confident John would sell 20 steamers in the first hour due to Esmerelda’s showmanship.

Esmerelda looked up at Lena with shining eyes, then swung her head to John.

“That sounds like a good deal to me,” agreed John, looking down at the girl with a fatherly smile.

Lena then turned to Esmerelda’s mother, not wanting her to nix this deal. “By Esmerelda driving traffic back to the Kite Booth, you also get customers. It will be a win, win, since the Festival is not willing to help you get customers, and this way Esmerelda can earn her own streamer instead of John just giving it to her, so she learns the value of hard work.” Lena knew which buttons to press.

“Can I, Mom? Can I? I promise to help in the booth when I am not using the ribbon streamer to get customers to come back here,” promised the girl.

Isabella looked down at her daughter, then back up at Lena and then at John. Kara was just an innocent bystander in this deal. “I can see you all think this is a good idea. How can I say no?” Isabella said, albeit with a small smile spreading on her face.

“Oh yay,” said Esmerelda with real glee, clapping her hands. “Thank you, Mom, thank you!” She dashed forward to embrace her Mom tightly. Her mother hugged her back.

When she let go Lena turned to the girl bending down slightly. “Now Esmerelda, when grownups make a business deal like this, they write up a contract on paper stating exactly what each person will do in the business deal and then sign it to make it legal, so they can’t go back on their word. This deal isn’t as fancy, so instead, each of you should state what they are going to do and then shake hands on it. And by shaking hands, each are saying they will honor their part of the bargain and do exactly what they promise without going back on their word.”

John stuck out his hand to Esmerelda. “I promise to loan you a ribbon streamer to attract customers and if I sell 20 or more ribbon streamers, I promise to give you one of your choice.” He made sure not to say ‘for free’ least he turn Esmerelda’s mother off on the deal.

Esmerelda stared at his proffered hand and then took it gingerly, a look of solemnity written across her face. “And I promise to go to the hill every half hour and wave the ribbon streamer to attract people and then send them to your booth. And to your booth, too, Mom,” she suddenly amended as she turned her head back to her mother.

They shook hands, Esmeralda’s small hand was engulfed in John’s beefy one.

“Perfect, Esmerelda. John what do I owe you for our one ribbon streamer?” Lena asked.

“Oh no, my dear, I can’t take your money,” he said pressing his hands against hers. “Please take it and enjoy. You helped me so much tonight.”

“All right,” Lena agreed. “Well, thank you.”

“Yes, thank you John,” said Kara. “Bye Esmerelda, it was fun making up our ribbon streamer dance together,” Kara said to the little girl.

“Bye Kara. Thanks for showing me all the dance moves. Bye Lena,” she also added.

“Yes, thank you for all you help today,” said Isabella.

The two women waved and walked back to the main walkway and then crossed a bridge over the creek. Lena was looking straight ahead but Kara just kept her eyes on Lena’s profile. Finally, Lena took notice and turned to Kara. “What,” she asked, her lips quirked in a quizzical smile.

“What? That was amazing, that’s what!” gushed Kara, still staring at Lena.

“What was?” asked Lena, genuinely perplexed.

“That. Back there. What you did.”

“What did I do,” asked Lena, who now turned towards Kara.

“Lena, you quieted an angry mother, made a deal with a shop keeper, figured out a way to sustainable drive customers to two different businesses and gave dignity to a little girl by inventing a job for her so she could get a free ribbon streamer. I mean, the way she shook John’s hand. Anytime she ever gives her word from now on, you just know she is going to mean it. She will remember that for the rest of her life.” Kara scanned the crowd as she tried to come up with the words to convey just how amazing she thought Lena was. So she just said it. “You’re amazing!”

“I am sure anyone could have done the same,” Lena demurred quietly.

“Well, no one did, except you.” I’m thoroughly impressed,” Kara said as she bumped shoulders with Lena. A Labradoodle jumped up and placed his paws on Kara’s forearms. “And you’re amazing, too,” said Kara, roughly scratching his head in a voice that appeared to put a smile on the dog’s face.

---

All of the wonderings and scrutinizing of art and waving of ribbons had made Kara famished. They hadn’t eaten anything in what felt like hours, thought Kara. “What do you say to looking for some dinner?” She asked Lena.

“That sounds great,” she murmured, eyes still on the booths they passed.

Suddenly, Kara held a crackling in her ear. Oh no, oh no, oh no, she thought. She touched her left ear to turn on the radio transmission from the DEO. Bank robbery, with hostages. Kara couldn’t ignore this. She took out her phone from her back pocket and unlocked it. “Oh gosh,” she said, frowning down at her phone.

“What is it?” asked Lena, turning towards her.

“It’s my sister,” lied Kara, pretending to read a text on her phone as she desperately racked her brain on how to buy herself time with Lena. “She’s…she’s having girlfriend problems, and wants me to call her.” At least this wasn’t too much of a lie. Alex and her real life girlfriend Maggie had been having issues lately. “Do you mind if I step over here…” she trailed off, pointing to the quieter corner of the Swim Center, the same one she used as cover to change into her Supergirl uniform to fly to the park earlier.

“No, not at all,” answered Lena smoothly. “Family first. Do you trust me to pick up something for us for dinner?”

“Implicitly,” answered Kara with a smile. “I’ll meet you back here at this bench by the Swim Center in about 25 minutes or so,” she said, indicating said bench and giving Lena a landmark to find her way back in case she got lost in the Festival on her own.

“Sounds good. And take your time with your sister,” Lena said and genuinely meant it. Kara waved at her and pretended to dial a number and placed the phone up to her ear as she turned away from Lena.

Lena was excited to be tasked with picking out dinner. She knew how important food was to Kara. And although she had enjoyed Kara showing her favorite things to her to do and eat at the Festival, she wanted to surprise Kara with something that she hadn’t eaten before. Now what could that be? Lena was always up for a challenge.

First, she made her way back to a booth they had passed hours ago called Olive All Over. She bought a small bottle of imported olive oil infused with lemon and a small bottle of balsamic vinegar with figs added. She also purchased a jar of an assortment of gourmet olives. A few booths down she bought some hummus topped with pine nuts, and the clerk gave her a plastic bag for her growing assortment of food.

Then she wandered two rows over until she found the cheese shop. She purchased a small assortment of cheeses that she had tasted there earlier in the day. The shop owner had laid out platters of free samples of slices of chees on fancy crackers. Lena asked the shop owner what were her odds of getting some free crackers thrown in and since she had bought such a nice variety, and the shop owner had thrown in half a box since she was closing up soon.

Next, she maneuvered herself over to the small farmers market. She found the stall that sold bags of cut up veggies of carrots, celery, red and orange peppers and cherry tomatoes.

Lena got a little lost behind the food court on her way to her next destination and appeared to be behind the food tents. As she walked around upturned crates and guide wires used to hold down tents and flaps, she came near a table with two teenage boys cutting open bread. They were behind the stand that sold clam chowder in bread bowls, and they were tasked with the unenviable job of cutting out the center of the small rounded loaves so the soup could be placed in it.

“Dude, damn, look what I did,” said the slightly shorter boy to his friend. He held up the loaf of bread to his face and poked his finger through the bottom.

“Dude!” said his friend sharply. “That is the third bread bowl you’ve ruined. My Mom’ll kill you! You’re supposed to take the knife and cut around the bread, not go all the way to the bottom. Now, throw that in the garbage before she sees and grab another one and try again.”

“So, who cares, I’ve never done this before, unlike you. Dude, you promised me we would only have to help in your Mom’s booth for a little awhile, then could go look for girls. We’ve been here, for like, three hours and haven’t had a chance to walk around yet.”

The boys had been so adamant talking to each other that they hadn’t noticed Lena coming to the front of their work table. “If you are just going to throw it away, I’ll take it off your hands,” said Lena in her most sultry voice.

Two pairs of teenage-boy eyes turned to stare at the woman with green eyes who had suddenly materialized in front of them. When neither one of them answered, Lena said again, “If you are throwing that bread away because it’s unusable, I would be happy to take it. I’ll even pay for it.” She indicted the ruined bread bowl with a tilt of her chin.

Both boys looked at her with mouths agape. Finally, the one boy who had botched the loaf of bread recovered and spoke. “Uh, you mean this one? Uh, sure, yeah, you can have it.” He held it out to her as if hypnotized, glancing at his friend daring him to say otherwise. Lena held open her plastic bag to him and he dropped it in unceremoniously.

Lena fished into her back pocket for a $20 bill. It was already folded into quarters and she leaned forward across the table and placed the bill in the pocket on the front of the young teen’s t-shirt. It stuck out half way, so she pulled her hand back and lightly tapped it down all the way, her fingertips grazing his chest. “Buy yourself a slice of pizza on me,” Lena said, winking “And maybe one for your friend here if he is nicer to you. Bye boys.” She waved and started to walk away.

“Dude,” she heard a cracked teenage voice whisper behind her.

“Dude, she touched me!” was whispered back.

That made Lena chuckle as she walked through the rest of the back of the food booths and back out onto a sidewalk. She waited in line to buy a bottle of water, and to get another drink ticket. Then walked around until she found a wine booth that had the name of a local winery that she always wanted to try. She selected a nice, cool, crisp white wine and then tried to find her way back to the Swim Center. After going down a few wrong turns, she finally found the bench Kara had pointed out to her. She sat down with her wine and waited.

---

As soon as she was out of sight of Lena, Kara ducked into the same bushes as before, changed into her Supergirl costume and flew away at top speed. Enroute she touched her ear and asked to be patched through to the officer on duty at the site of the bank robbery.

To her surprise, her sister Alex answered the call. There were two bank robbers, one was armed and had shot the security guard, although he appeared to be still alive at the moment. There were 16 hostages, counting the security guard. The other bank robber was a Horker. That was an alien with an extremely tough outer skin and near super strength, although not as strong as Supergirl. Bullets could penetrate its skin, but they had to be a high caliber and would take many to slow them down. That’s why Alex and the DEO had been called in. Alex filled in Kara and she flew through the air, surveying the scene. Flying near the bank, she saw a ring of police cars with their doors open and police officers using the doors as protection as they kept their guns trained on the building. There was also a SWAT truck and the DEO van. She spotted Alex outside talking to three of her team members.

She used her x-ray vision to check out the situation inside the bank. The bank was in a one story building on the end of a block. All of the hostages were sitting on the floor leaning against the bank teller counter, except for the security guard, who was laying on the ground. The two robbers were a short distance away having a heated discussion. Kara could see the rifle in the hands of the human. She couldn’t see any weapons on the Horker. She flew a little closer to the roof of the bank and used her super hearing to listen in.

“..This was not part of our deal, Kent,” said the Horker in a gruff voice. “You told me no one would get hurt. That you just needed me to rip open the door off the vault and we would grab the money and run. And now there are police outside that door.”

“I know, I know,” said the human who must be Kent. “But that stupid security guard just had to try to be a hero instead of getting down on the ground. He made me shoot him. And look, he’s fine, no one got hurt, Benshenji!” cajoled Ken.

Supergirl begged to differ, seeing the security guard laying on the ground holding his shoulder and blood slowly coating the floor.

“I didn’t even want to do this!” said the Horker, straining between clenched teeth. “You talked me into it, saying you would turn me over to the authorities as an unregistered alien if I didn’t go along with your plan….”

“Look, we’re not in jail yet. Shut up, will ya, and let me think of something…” said Kent.

Kara quickly formulated a plan. She flew back to a construction site she spotted on the way over to the bank and picked up a few things. Then she flew back to the bank and touched her ear. She told Alex her plan and for her to ask all the officers to hold their fire. When Kara heard the command go up and down the line, she flew close to the ground. There was a window on the opposite wall where the hostages sat. She tossed a large cement block underhand at the window. The then flew at top speed around to the front of the bank. When she heard the block crash thought the window, she timed it so she flew through the two double glass doors at the front of the bank.

Sure enough, the two bank robbers had turned at the sound of the cement block crashing through the window, Kent aiming the rifle at the sound. She flew through the doors and as the bank robbers turned around at that sound, she used her heat vison to melt the barrel of the rifle so it couldn’t shoot, then reached Kent a fraction of a second later and punched his jaw so hard he was knocked unconscious. She banked sharply and tackled the Horker. He was so surprised he went down easily and she quickly pinned his arms behind his back. Then Kara took the thick chain she had found at the construction site from around her shoulder and hog tied him as if at a rodeo. When he realized what had happened, it was too late to fight.

She kneeled next to him with her hand on the chains. “Are you all alright?” she called out to the hostages on the floor. Once they got over the shock of what just happened they smiled and called out her name.

“Were fine, but Vern here got shot,” said a man in a dark suit who looked like the branch manager.

“Okay, sit tight and let me take these two out of here, then I will come back for you and for Vern. No one move please for a few more minutes, okay?” The hostages all nodded in agreement, even Vern, who was looking a little pale. Kara would make this quick so he could get the medical help he needed. She touched her ear and told Alex the robbers had been neutralized and she was bringing them out and for Alex to tell everyone to hold their fire.

“Okay you, on your feet,” said Kara to the Horker, pulling on his arms to help him to stand. “Don’t try anything funny, there are a lot of officers outside.” She then picked up the unconscious Kent and slung him over her shoulder. She kept her hand on the Horker’s wrists, which were bound by the chain. The Horker looked defeated. “Okay, let’s walk out those front doors,” she commanded.

As they started walking to the now smashed front doors, Kara leaned in to the Horker’s ear, on the side away from the hostages. “Benshenji, was it?” she murmured into his ear. His body went a little straighter but he didn’t respond. “You’ve got about the eight seconds it will take to walk you out of here to the police to decide your future,” she continued. “As it stands, an unregistered alien helping to rob a bank will be placed in a very strong dark cell in the DEO where you will have no chance of escaping.” She pushed Benshenji through the first set of doors, and then the next so they were out on the street. The police officers visibly tensed up, but no one fired at them.

“Or you can tell the police that this robbery was Kent’s idea and that he blackmailed you into helping by threating to report you. If you confess this, and show remorse, I will make sure you are placed in an alien rehabilitation program with the DEO. You will become registered and trained for a job that suits your skill set and if you have good behavior, will be released after nine months to be a productive, free member of earth.” She was a big fan of the program. She helped design it a few years back when she found out the DEO imprisoned aliens who had committed crimes and rarely let them back out. She wanted them to have a second chance if they wanted to take it.

She walked up to the police van, met by Alex and the commanding officer and other police officers. “This is the ring leader,” said Kara to the officers, placing his limp body into their hands. The security guard needs medical attention, and I told the hostages to stay put until someone from your team goes and gets them out, she said to the Police Commander.

“Very good,” said the Commander. He spoke into his radio to tell the SWAT team to go inside and when cleared, to bring in a stretcher for the security guard. “Thank you for your help today, Supergirl. I am glad no one lost their life,” he told her proudly.

“You’re welcome, and me too,” she responded. Kara still had a hold of Benshenji’s chained wrists. She turned his body slightly towards Alex and her team. “And this is Benshenji. Benshenji, this is Alex Danvers, deputy director of the DEO.” She stopped talking and waited on Benshenji.

“I wish to talk to you Deputy Director Danvers,” he said gravely. “I wish to atone for my crimes.” Good, thought Kara, it looks like Benshenji would take the deal at a second chance.

“Very well,” she lifted her hand to direct her team to take over the handling of Benshenji from Supergirl. "Please go with these officers and we will drive to the DEO where we can take your statement on what happened and what your options are."

“Yes,” he agreed and was led away quietly to the white DEO van. He turned back over his shoulder and called out, “Thank you Supergirl. I will work hard to honor your faith in me.” Kara bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“Commander, we will process the Horker and take his statement and share the details with you,” Alex said to the head police officer. The normal human jail was not meant to contain aliens so he was happy Alex and team were taking the Horker off his hands.

Kara grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled her aside. “He was blackmailed by the human to commit this crime. I am hoping he can be placed in the rehabilitation program,” she said quietly to Alex.

“If that is true, I think we can arrange that,” said Alex. Kara smiled at her.

“I have to go,” she said, stepping away from Alex. She then mouthed, “I’m on a date!” to her sister. Her sister rolled her eyes hard and said, “Go, get out of here,” making a shooing motion.

Kara pushed off the ground and flew straight up in the air and then turned back towards the Art and Wine Festival. She only hoped that hadn’t taken too long.

---

Kara landed back in the bushes and changed at super speed, then took a beat to make sure the coast was clear and walked out onto the sidewalk. She spotted the bench she had pointed out to Lena earlier and saw Lena was sitting on it, her legs crossed demurring, sipping a glass of white wine. Kara rushed over, anxiety curdling in her stomach.

“Hey, sorry about that, I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long,” she said to Lena, holding up her phone with a genuine look of dismay.

“No problem,” said Lena graciously back. She stood up from the bench, picking up her bulging plastic bag. “Is everything okay?’

“Well, they both work very stressful and dangerous jobs, and it is hard to make time for their relationship sometimes. Work seems to always impose.” Kara had been trying to think of a little white lie to make up about her fake phone call to her sister, and once the words were out of her mouth, realized it applied more to her situation then to her sister’s.

“I bet that is tough,” agreed Lena. “On a brighter note, I got us some food for dinner,” she said as she hoisted the bag in the air. “Should we find a table?” she asked. Kara agreed and they walked the short distance to the food court. The dining area was full to the brim and after a few moments of searching, they couldn’t see a single spot where they could sit.

“You know, I have a different idea. Can you walk us back the way we came for your car?” asked Lena.

Kara looked at her curiously, but agreed, taking the bag from her hand.

They left the park and the grounds of the Art and Wine festival, and as they passed a non-descript building, Lena put her hand on Kara’s arm and slowed her progress. “This should do nicely,” said Lena as she stepped around Kara and went to the low brick wall that was topped by a slab of concrete and was situated in front of a little courtyard before the entrance to the building. She swung a leg over and sat with a leg on either side of the wall. She patted the spot in front of her, indicating for Kara to join her. Kara, with a surprised smile, walked over and also swung her leg over the wall so she was facing Lena and sat down, handing over the bag.

Lena pulled out a few napkins and asked Kara to spread them on the concrete top, and placed her glass of wine on top of them. She then proceeded to unpack her bag. She placed a study paper plate in front of Kara and then handed her a slightly mangled loaf of sourdough. She instructed Kara to tear it up into pieces and place them on the paper plate. Then she opened up the jar of olives and the hummus, and placed the bag of veggies on another paper plate. She unpacked the cheeses and spread them on their own paper plate, smacking Kara’s hand when it stole a slice, and poured the crackers from the box next to the cheese slices. She then handed Kara a bottle of water and got out her last paper plate. She poured all the olive oil unto it, the thick liquid pushed to the sides of the plate. Kara got so engrossed in watching Lena pour the oil that she stopped trying to surreptitiously steal the olives and watched her.

Next Lena unscrewed the top to the balsamic vinegar and poured a large red-brown stain in the middle of the oil. Then she plucked a cube of bread Kara had just torn up and dipped it through the olive oil and vinegar, staining the bread brown, and popped it into her mouth.

“Oh my gosh, delicious, you have to try some,” Lena said with her mouth full. Kara imitated Lena and groaned at the taste.

“That is so good, what’s in it?

“The olive oil is infused with lemon, and the balsamic vinegar has figs in it. Quite a combination, isn’t it?” Lena asked.

“Lena, it’s amazing, and this feast is incredible, so many unique tastes, thank you for procuring all of this for us!” Kara was truly impressed. She never would have thought to put this together. Lena smiled at the praise, and felt her cheeks blush a little, so she bent her head down to concentrate on building a cheese and cracker sandwich.

The food put them both in good moods and the talk flowed freely, even after Lena had stopped eating to finish sipping her wine and Kara had used her fingers to lick the container of hummus and the rest of the bread to sop up all of the oil and vinegar.

As they were chatting, three college-aged students walked by them on the sidewalk back towards the Art and Wine Festival.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late, I don’t want to miss them,” said one of the girls.

“Miss who?” asked the young man.

“The Zwing Kings… Duh!” said the second girl.

“Oh, is that the band that does all those cover songs? I like them’” said the young man.

“I haven’t been dancing for months,” said the first women.

“Where are we headed?” asked the young man, who seemed to be clueless to what was happening.

“They’re playing at the Pavilion,” said the second girl, their voices now trailing as they moved away from their impromptu dining spot.

Kara looked over at Lena. “Dancing?”

Chapter Text

“I mean, would you like to go dancing?” Kara asked, recovering from her bout of eavesdropping on strangers to look at the dark-haired girl sitting opposite her on a low brick wall. “It usually a big block party the first night of the Art and Wine Festival with bands and stuff.”

“That sounds great. A perfect end to a perfect day,” she said to her blonde dinner companion.

“Great, I know exactly where the Pavilion is,” said Kara, as she started to clean up the remains of their dinner, or rather the empty plates and containers as Kara had eaten and enjoyed every last scrap. Lena joined her in the cleanup and they soon had all the detritus in the plastic bag and Kara carried it over to a trash can on the sidewalk as Lena lifted the flap and Kara deposited it inside. Kara smiled at Lena and started off down the street in the direction that the three people who had mentioned the dance party had gone, back in the direction of the Art and Wine Festival.

As the two women walked, Lena could hear the sound of music growing louder, as well as a swell of voices. She noticed a large orange pole standing up into the dusky sky, about 75 feet high if she had to guess. Chains were affixed to the top and spread out to the surrounding circle‘s perimeter. As they got closer, Lena could see that Wisteria plants were also on the perimeter and the branches had grown up about one-quarter of the way up the chains.

When they made it to the entrance of the Pavilion and stepped under the greenery, Lena could see a ring of picnic tables on a brick-lined circle about 15 feet wide with a stage on one end, a set of circular stairs on the other end, currently covered in people lounging on them. In-between the stairs and the stage were ramps on either side leading down about three feet to a grassy enclosure around the orange tent pole holding up everything. Families were sitting around the picnic tables on the outer ring and groups of people were dancing in the grass in the sunken ring as a band enthusiastically played for the crowd.

Kara led Lena through the tables and down the ramp to the enclosure and leaned against the wall that held the tables. “Should we dance?” She leaned towards Lena's ear to be heard above the music, causing an involuntary shiver down Lena’s spine.

Lena took off her backpack purse and held it in her hands with her commemorative wine glass. “Uh, sure, but what should I do with these?” She asked as she looked around. Kara turned behind her and saw a grandmotherly woman sitting at one of the picnic tables, tapping her fingers to the beat.

“Excuse me,” said Kara to the woman. “My friend and I wanted to dance but didn’t want to take our backpack and wine glass to the dance floor. Would it be okay if we left it at your table?” Kara gave her one of her brightest smiles.

“Of course, dear, I would be happy to watch it. My daughter and granddaughters are out there dancing now. Just put it up on the table and I would be happy to keep an eye on your things.”

“Oh thank you so much,” said Kara, taking the backpack and glass from Lena’s hands and stepping up the wall to be on the same level as the picnic table and placed the things on the woman’s table. “I’m Kara, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand to the woman.

“Pleased to meet you Kara, I’m Martha,” said the woman, shaking Kara’s hand and giving her a friendly smile. “You two go have fun. I’ll be right here,” she said as she made shooing motions with both of her hands. Kara laughed and thanked her as she jumped down the wall to be on the same level as Lena. “Shall we?” she asked as she gestured to the crowd dancing, holding out her hand. Lena got up off of the wall where she was perched and took her hand to follow Kara out into the crowd.

Dancing really wasn’t Lena’s thing, if she was being honest with herself. She always felt a little self-conscience dancing in group settings. She was only here because she could tell it meant a lot to Kara, and she wanted to get the full Art and Wine Festival Experience with the blonde woman.

Kara tugged Lena to a small space in the crowd and dropped her hand and started dancing. Lena closed the space between them and also started dancing, moving to the familiar music, a cover of a song from a few years back. She surveyed the crowd and then glanced back at Kara. Kara was dancing slowly and staring down at Lena. Lena gave her a quizzical look when Kara glanced back up at her. Kara smiled and then moved closer, her moves matching Lena’s perfectly, swaying with her, their limbs a fraction of an inch from touching. Kara had been studying her, how she moved, Lena now realized, and was moving with her in syncopated rhythm.  Lena smiled up at a very close Kara, feeling the heat from her body and smelling a tantalizing scent of the essence of Kara that she realized she had been unconsciously smelling all day. Lena’s face darkened at the intimacy, the sounds of the crowd and the music magically narrowing until it was just Kara and her dancing together. Then the song ended and Kara took a step back to applaud with the rest of the crowd.

Lena also took a step back, suddenly dazed at the loss of the close proximity to the blonde woman, the sound and the fury of the crowd rushing back to assault her senses. Lena realized she was staring at Kara’s face, unsure of what had just happened, why she felt so startled by the end of the song. Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone put a hand on Kara’s bicep. Kara turned at the touch and smiled widely and started hugging the girl who had touched her. Kara leaned into Lena and spoke against her ear, her warm breath giving her goose bumps. Kara told her the woman was a classmate, Josie, as well as the other woman with her, named Kendra. Lena hadn’t even noticed the other person next to her. Kara said something to the two women and pointed back at Lena, who waved. A song started up again and now the four of them danced in a small circle.

One of the women, Josie, Lena thought, danced with abandon, with her arms above her head, swaying her hips in exaggerated circles. Kara watched her for several seconds and then moved closer to her and started to imitate her moves perfectly, as she had done with Lena. Lena had to fight down a flare of jealousy. Josie glanced over to see Kara moving with her and smiled up at her, her mouth in a wide grin. She turned to Kara and now they danced tighter. Yep, Lena had to restrain herself from inserting herself between the two women. Kara then turned to Lena and dropped her arms and started to dance with Lena again. Lena couldn’t help but be relived. Kara gave her a sweet smile, her eyes kind, and Lena had to mentally chastise herself. Kara was popular after all, and was just enjoying being with her friends. Lena had nothing to be jealous about. In fact, she was fine with it, she understood. At least that is what she told herself. The spike of adrenaline in her body after witnessing Kara dance with the other woman told her otherwise.

Halfway through the second song, a man and a women came up to Kara and she greeted them with hugs and they introduced themselves to everyone. Lena assumed they were classmates. The music was too loud to hear their names properly so Lena just smiled at them. The mutual friends came up to the circle and after everyone shouting out their names, they all danced to several more songs.

The eight of them formed a loose circle and people took turns moving to the middle and showing off moves, followed by Kara trying to imitate them. It caused a lot of laughing. When Kara beckoned Lena into the circle with her, Lena declined. She enjoyed watching the group have a good time, but she hated being the center of attention.  

After a particularly fast set of songs, Lena put her hand on Kara’s shoulder and whisper-yelled she was thirsty and going to get some water. Kara offered to come with her but Lena insisted she stay and dance with her friends. She felt more comfortable with Kara dancing with her friends because of the golden smile Kara gave her when she looked her way and made Lena feel special.

She went up the ramp and exited the circle, remembering they had passed a cart that was selling waters and sodas. Lena bought two bottles of cold water and made her way back to the Pavilion. She found the table where Martha was sitting and leaned against the wall below it in almost the exact same spot when they had first come in.

She looked up at Martha. “You two looked like you were having fun out there,” Martha said above the music to Lena. Lena acknowledged she was and that the band was very good. Martha smiled and leaned back on her bench. Lena turned her back to her and looked out over the now crowded dance floor, instantly spotting blonde locks within her circle of friends.

After a few minutes, she saw Kara surveying the perimeter, a slight frown on her face, until her eyes landed on Lena’s. They lit up when they locked on green eyes, and Kara gestured for Lena to join her on the dance floor. Lena shook her head no and held up her water bottle with a small shake to communicate she was still resting and rehydrating. Kara mouthed okay and turned back to her friends when the band started to play a popular song they all seemed to know and love.

Lena thought back to a conversation she had overheard two classmates having about two years ago. One girl was complaining to her other friend that she and her boyfriend had gone out dancing and that her boyfriend, a football player, started dancing with other people he knew. When the girl had gone back to their table near the bar, her boyfriend had stayed out to dance with his friends, she stated emphatically. Girl number two had said, “So what?” and that had made girl number one incensed. “Don’t you get it, he kept dancing with other girls,” she had told friend number two.

“So what, they were his friends. And you said he just danced, he didn’t touch them inappropriately or anything, And at the end of the night, he went home with you, right?” said the second girl. When the first girl agreed, the second said, “See, you had nothing to be jealous of, he only has eyes for you.” Girl number one huffed out a yes, but didn’t seem convinced.

Lena, not really interested in the conversation but couldn’t escape it due to their proximity in class, had agreed with girl number two, at the time. She agreed that the boyfriend hadn’t done anything out of line and that girl number one was being way too clingy and jealous. She also predicted the relationship wouldn’t last with her insecurities rearing their ugly head so strongly. The irony was not lost on her in the present, her eyes widening slightly. What did that even mean, anyway, she asked herself? Was she really like the overly jealous girl number one? Kara and she had only gone on three dates. No, two dates and one non-date, her brain told her. She didn’t have any hold on Kara? So why the strong possessive feelings?

Yet, now that she thought about it, Kara had kept coming back to Lena, moving to dance closely with her when they had been in the circle with her friends, smiling at her with a smile that seemed to light up the night. Lena looked for the blonde woman again in the crowd and saw her now in the middle of the circle holding one knee bent and the other hand behind her head, wiggling her body, a big silly grin on her face. Such a dork, Lena thought fondly. My dork, she thought forcefully.

The band segued into a lively song and at the chorus half of the dancing crowd sang with the lead singer the line, “Shut up and dance with me!” Lena had never heard the song before, and was surprised to hear so many sing the words, but she would be the first to admit she was not up on her pop culture. And the audience seemed to prefer to shout-sing the lyrics rather than listen to the lead singer. It was a communal call and response that had many smiling.

Then the song ended and the band’s horn section started another song, something that Lena’s brain told her it knew, but couldn’t place it. A thrill went rippling through the crowd at the first notes, a hint of anticipation just hidden behind the frenetic energy of the dancers. The lead singer started the song and the dancers looked to each other as if to share that fact they knew what was coming. Then the horns played six sharp staccato notes that the crowd jumped up and down as if on cue and the whole crowd began to sing and wave their hands…. “It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A…” the crowd moving in unison to spell out the letters with their hands. Lena smiled and shook her head at the classic hit and the crowd’s reaction to it.

She watched the song unfold and the participants move as one each time the chorus came to spell out the letters. Up until this very moment, she had never really understood the attraction to dancing out in big crowds, but seeing this, it was as if a lightbulb went on for Lena. The way the crowd knew most of the words to these poplar songs and sang along, as if a call and response of prayers. The synchronized movements that the crowd performed together, almost as if they had a common vocabulary, a vocabulary of physical moves the all preformed together. Such joy and energy radiated out from the crowd, the shared synchronicity made the dancers feel as one, or part of a whole. The energy was infectious, and even though Lena was not currently out on the dance floor, she could feel it. And it felt so cathartic to be here, one in a crowd, something she had never felt so home in before. Even though she was sitting alone, she laughed at the audacity of something so simple that felt so much bigger than herself.

The YMCA song ended to much applause and high fiving and then the lead singer announced to the crowd, “Okay, do we have any country music fans in the house?” Some in the crowd whooped appreciatively. Lena inwardly groaned; country and western was not a favorite genre. She noticed some couples leave the dance floor out of the corner of her eye. “Grab your cowboy hats and your boots, because we are going to do the Boot Scootin’ boogie!” he sang out. Some member of the audience cheered and some groaned, or maybe Lena imagined that. The lead guitarist started off with, what Lena could only inadequately describe, a honky-tonk riff, the lead singer accompanying him with a twangy lilt as he sang the lyrics.

Lena briefly turned her attention away from the song, but then her focus was brought back to what was happening on the dance floor. Or rather, what Kara was doing. She was executing a different kind of dance, moving four steps to the right, then four to the left, tapping her heels and clapping, then rotating a quarter turn and starting all over again. She was gesturing to her friends to show them how to imitate her and soon the seven other people in her group where behind her, more or less moving the way she was. Several of their neighbors noticed and nudged their friends and soon about a quarter of the dance floor was following what Kara was doing. Then others craned their neck to see how to move, and several of her friends gestured for Kara to move to the front near the stage, Josie giving her a friendly push.

Even from where Lena was, she could see Kara’s face turn red and she pushed up her glasses, but did as her friends asked, moving to the front of the stage and turning her back on the crowd. She paused for a second to get the rhythm, then started moving, the whole of the crowd attempting to mirror her moves.

Lena smiled in disbelief as the whole crowd followed Kara’s lead, having decided to spread out into lines to allow themselves room to move. When the song ended, the crowd clapped as much for the band as for Kara.

“Okay, okay, that was a little hard for some of you to follow,” said the lead singer. ”How ‘bout we do a different line dance that has the instructions in the song?” he asked rhetorically. The crowd still cheered out its affirmation,

“Okay, this one is called ‘The Cha Cha slide,” he announced. A trill went up from the crowd members that knew the song, Kara turning to her friends excitedly from her place still at the head of the stage. “And if you don’t know what to do in the song, just watch at blondie here,” said the singer. Hey, Lena thought, only I get to call her that. Kara put a hand to her cheek and looked embarrassed. Lena thought she heard a few cat whistles from the back.

“We’re going to get funky,” sang out the lead singer, as the keyboardist and guitarist meted out vibrant rhythm. “Everybody clap your hands…” Lena almost stood up, and she had no idea why. She felt that if she had hackles, they would definitely be up. “To the left,” the singer instructed, and once again, the crowd followed what Kara was doing.

“One hop this time, right foot let’s stomp, left foot let’s stomp, cha cha real smooth,” went the song and Lena couldn’t help but laugh as Kara executed the instructions with ease, all eyes on her.

“One hop this time,” said the singer and everyone jumped as the horns blared out a note as they hit the ground, “One hop this time, right foot two stomps…left foot two stomps… slide to the left… slide to the right, criss cross…. criss cross!” The crowd moved as one, or rather with Kara at the instructions and Lena felt the delight of the crowd, the jealousy easing out of her body. The song ended and as the applause swelled, the lead singer called out, “And let’s have a hand for our awesome dance instructor.” The crowd picked up their applause and several people who Lena was sure were not part of Kara’s friend group congratulated her.

Luckily the band started up with the Latin sounds of The Miami Sound Machine’s song ‘Conga.’ Kara moved away from the front of the stage to be with her friends again, much to Lena’s relief. As the infectious song went on, some people started to form an impromptu conga line, grabbing on to either the shoulders or the waist of the person in front of them and moving to the beat. As the line snaked around the dance floor, more people either attached themselves to the end or started forming their own conga line and then joined up with the original line as it snaked past. Lena looked for Kara and she saw two girls who definitely were not from Kara’s friend group briefly push each other to be the first to get to put their hands on Kara’s hips, not her shoulders, Lena noted. The taller one won out and her friend reluctantly grabbed the hips of that girl. Lena just put her head in her hands. This relationship was going to be the death of her, she thought.

“Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga,” sang out the lead singer, mercifully ending the song. Lena looked up and most people started to let go of the person’s waist or shoulders in front of them, except the girl who had her hands on Kara’s hips still had them there, reluctantly dropping them a beat after everyone else did.

“Aw, y’all look so cute in line,” said the lead singer. “Dax, help them out.” Dax, who must have been the saxophonist, started belting out notes… was that the bunny hop, though Lena. The crowd replaced their hands on the hips or shoulders of the person in front of them. The girl who had been second behind Kara elbowed her friend out of the way and placed her hands on Kara’s waist, giving a triumphantly look back at her friend. Kara gamely played along as the crowd all seemed to magically know to kick left, then right, then hop forward three times to the notes of the horn. Finally the saxophonist stopped playing and everyone clapped, all hands off of waists.

“Alrigth folks, this is our last song of the night,” said the singer as some people gave a low rumble of disapproval. “So you best join us on the dance floor!” The crowd took him at his word and packed the area. Kara looked over at Lena and gestured with her hands for Lena to join her. Lena still amusedly shook her head no.

The song “I'm a Believer,” by Smash Mouth, was just lively enough to get the crowd worked up into a mild frenzy. When it ended, the guitarist drew out the last cord and the crowd whistled and stomped.

“Thank you National City,” shouted the lead singer. “Have a good night!”

“Now waaaaaaaait a minute….” sang a different band member.  The crowd paused in confusion.

“Dave, what are you doing,” said the lead singer, turning his head to look at his lead guitarist and moutheds into his microphone. “It’s time to go home.”

“That makes me angry,” said Dave, strumming down hard on his guitar.

“That makes you angry? That we have to leave?” asked the lead singer.

“Yes, that makes me so angry. That makes me want to... shout!” On the word shout, he strummed down on a harsh chord again. The crowd made an ‘ohhh’ noise. The hairs on the back of Lena’s neck stood up. What was the crowd excited about? What was she missing?

“That makes you want to shout?” repeated back the lead singer, the guitarist again strumming down on the word ‘shout.’

“Yes, shout!” said Dave the guitarist.

“You know you make me want to shout… kick my heels up and... shout!” Lena’s ears pricked up as the singer launched into the old song, ‘Shout.’ The crowd, which had been prepared to go home, now ran back to the dance floor to dance to the fast song. At least no one was holding on to anyone’s waist, Lena thought.

“… a little bit softer now… shout… a little bit softer now…” sang the band halfway through the song, and as if on cue, the crowd started to shrink down towards the dance floor by bending their knees, until they were as low as the could go. Lena again marveled at the shared vocabulary of dance that the crowd all knew. “A little bit louder now… shout... a little but louder now.” The crowd started to straighten up, and when they got upright, jumped in the air every time the singer said the word shout. Was it Lena’s imagination, or was Kara jumping just a tiny bit higher than everyone else?

“Hey aye yay yay,” sang the lead singer. “Hey aye yay yay,” sang back the crowd in that call and response that everyone just seemed to know, that somehow touched Lena. Finally the song ended with a flourish from the guitarist and a down drum beat. The crowd whooped and clapped it’s appreciation.

“Okay, really, now we are saying good bye,” said the lead singer. Lena instantly found Kara in the crowd, hugging her friends goodbye. As she broke the last hug, someone held out their hand, and she high fived it. As she started to make her way back to Lena, Kara suddenly faced a gantlet of dancers that wanted to high five her.

---

Kara saw so many hands out in front of her, she stated high fiving with both hands as she made her way back to Lena. Some people were patting her on the back and telling her she was great at leading the dances. She tried to smile and acknowledge them all, but it was a little daunting. All she could think about was getting back to Lena. She realized she had danced most of the night with her friends, and she hoped Lena wasn’t mad. She had checked in twice from a distance and had motioned for Lena to come back to the dance floor, and Lena had smiled a no each time. She just didn’t realize how long she had left her alone until the final song.

As she finally cleared the crowd and strode to Lena, Lena stood up from leaning against the wall. She broke into a huge smile and Kara visibility relaxed. “Hey, I’m so sorry I lost track of time...” Kara started, only to be pulled into an embrace from the dark-headed woman. Kara, momentarily confused put her arms around Lena’s back. “I didn’t mean to spend all my time dancing without you,” she spoke into Lena’ hair.

Lena pulled back, her hands gripping Kara’s forearms, “Hey, it’s okay, I enjoyed watching you dance,” Lena said, ducking her head to catch Kara’s eye. “The band was great and the songs were a lot of fun. And you are a very good teacher, too!” Lena reached back to the wall. “And I got another bottle of water in case you are thirsty.”

Kara thanked her for the water and drained half the bottle in one long pull. “Oh, you saw that I kinda got pushed to the head of the dance floor. I think it just was because I was the only one who knew all the steps,” said Kara modestly.

Lena just smiled back, not believing that for a second. “Are you ready to go?” asked Kara, finishing off all the water in her bottle. Lena nodded yes. ”I’ll go get our stuff from Martha,” said Kara as she jumped up on the wall and thanked Martha.

“My pleasure dear, you were a lovely dancer,” said Martha to Kara.

“Thank you Martha, have a great night,” wished Kara. She hopped back down and put her arm loosely around Lena's waist. Lena returned the gesture. They slowly made their way out of the Pavilion, being carried away on the tide of the crowd that was trying to leave when everyone else was too, but neither were in much of a hurry, just enjoying the night.

They finally cleared the Pavilion and they dropped their hands from each other’s waist and made their way out of the Park, walking in companionable silence. They were now walking past the very same building where they had enjoyed their dinner. Lena glanced at the wall where they had sat as they passed. Kara kept walking, suddenly noticing that Lena was no longer walking beside her. She stopped and then turned around. Lena was standing still on the sidewalk, staring at Kara. “Lena?” questioned Kara, slightly laughing. She took a few strides back to her to stand in front of her, her hand reaching towards her. “Is everything alri-“

“Sleep with me,” said Lena matter of factly.

“What?” said Kara, dropping her hand.

Yes, what? Said Lena’s brain to Lena’s heart. For it was Lena’s heart that had spoken. Normally, Lena’s heart had to ask Lena’s brain for permission to speak, to let itself known, to run everything by her big ol’ brain. And that brain always shot it down, whatever the heart wanted to say. But this time the heart hadn’t asked. It had bypassed the brain altogether and had spoken through Lena’s oh, so compliant mouth.

“I… I didn’t mean sleep with me, sleep with me,” stuttered Lena. “Although I eventually want to do that too, I didn’t mean it like that… I just meant sleep with me, in a bed… like… like…” Oh god, did she just say all that out loud? She put her head in her hands.

Brain, help, said Lena’s heart. Okay, said Lena’s brain, taking over.

“Okay,” said Lena’s mouth out loud to Kara. She took her head out of her hands and stood up straight and tall, looking Kara straight in the eye. Kara looked back expectantly.

“I just spent the most amazing day with you, Kara. And I am not talking about the Art and Wine Festival, I am talking about you.” She paused, looking at Kara. “You are a sun, and I am like an object helplessly drawn to your gravitational pull. And like a sun, everyone is attracted to your light and warmth, and then drawn into your orbit. And you are so open and curious, to everyone you meet. And people can feel it, they are attracted to your energy, your smile. You talk to everyone like they are the most important person in the world and people just want to be around you, and they don’t even know why.”

Kara just stared at Lena.

“Do you know you greeted every single dog at that park today?” Lena abruptly changed tack.

“Well, not every one,” Kara said self-deprecatingly, breaking the intense eye contact and looking off to the side.

“Yes, every one,” continued Lena, “And some you even greeted by name!”

“That’s because Rex, Penelope and King had their names written on their collars,” said Kara, looking back into Lena’s eyes, as if she could ever stay away.

“See, I didn’t see that detail. But you did. And all those dogs greeted you back. And I should know, because I have the bruises on my knees from so many wagging tails to prove it.”

Kara laughed softly.

“And you just got a crowd of people to follow your every move back there,” Lena said jerking her head and thumb behind her in the general direction of the Pavilion.

“That’s just because I was showing them dance steps,” said Kara in a small voice.

“And you had women fighting over who got to dance next to you,” countered Lena.

“I did not,” said Kara, horrified, her cheeks suddenly turning a bright shade of red.

“And earlier today you kindly helped that man in that wheel chair yet enabled him to maintain his dignity…” said Lena.

“Oh, you saw that, did ya?” said Kara. “I noticed him the first time around, and he looked hot so I wanted to help move him to the shade and bring him some water.”

“You noticed him the first time around?” asked an incredulous Lena. “I didn’t even notice him the second time around, until you started talking to him. See that, that is what I am talking about,” said Lena, gesturing with her arms wide. “But I will tell you want I did notice. I noticed that little girl on that tall chair at the hat booth, and I noticed when she started to lean forward. And I thought the chair was going to slip out from under her and then I thought I should move away because the chair might hit me, and it was a metal chair and looked heavy and I didn’t want to get hurt. And I didn’t even consider the little girl and how she could get hurt. But not you. You ran to the fire, so to speak. You ran to her and grabbed her and kept her out of harm’s way, and that is so, so admirable.” Lena spoke that last line with a tone of reverence, while Kara continued to stare, not sure what to do with this information.

“And you took the time to make up a dance with those ribbon streamers with a little girl…”

“Esmerelda,” murmured Kara.

“Esmerelda,” repeated Lena. “And you showed so much joy in waving that ribbon around, that you made people stop and stare.” Kara opened her mouth to refute that people were staring at her when Lena held up her hand.

“You are so open, and so good, and make everyone around you feel your good energy, and that is why…” here Lena stepped forward towards Kara, getting inside her personal space. “I want you to take me home…” She leaned towards Kara’s right ear, “… and get undressed and get into bed with me…” Kara felt Lena’s breath on her cheek as Lena put her hand on her shoulder and it was all she could do to hold still. “… and hold me all night long…” Lena pressed up to her ear, “While I get the best sleep of my life,” she whispered hotly in the sultriest voice Kara had ever heard.

Lena pulled back, removing her hand and slowly moving out of Kara’s personal space, traveling the reverse of the route she took to her ear, staring into Kara’s eyes the whole time. Kara stared back. Finally, Kara mustered her voice. “My car is two blocks this way.”

Chapter Text

The ride back had been in silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t companionable, either. More like a palpable tension rode in the car with them. Kara parked the car and hurried around to open the door for Lena, briefly holding her hand to help her out. Lena knew by now to wait for Kara to take care of her with regards to the car door.

They walked up to the third floor, their footsteps echoing off the walls of the stairwell. Kara used her key to open her apartment door and went inside, throwing her keyring down in a bowl on a table just inside the door and turning on small lamp next to it. Lena followed her inside and Kara shut the door behind her. Lena turned to her expectantly and Kara grabbed her in her arms. Lena automatically encircled her neck and Kara kissed her intensely, crashing her lips to Lena’s. Lena’s insides bubbled and fizzed at the sudden rush of tasting Kara, feeling her warmth along her front, and smelling her shampoo and the hint of musk that was unmistakably Kara. Kara encircled her arms around Lena and felt the soft curves of Lena against her hard body and the contrast was delicious.

When they pulled back, both breathing heavily, Kara said to Lena, “Thank you for all those kind words before. I don’t think anyone has ever seen me as completely as you do, and spoken so reverently about me.” For Kara, they had been small words that packed a strong punch. She had no idea how much she had affected the raven-haired beauty. And the fact she had to fly away not once, but twice to do Supergirl duties and the woman was still singing her praises meant more to her than anything they had done that day.

“You’re very welcome. I meant every word of it,” said Lena, leaning her forehead against the blonde. Oh yeah, thought Lena, she could get used to this. “I know I was here yesterday morning,” God, had it just been yesterday, she thought? “But I didn’t really get a good look at your place. You want to give me the grand tour of your apartment?”

“Hmm, what? Oh. Yeah, sure,” said a slightly stunned Kara, breaking out of their embrace. “This is the living room, the dining room,” she pointed, “And the kitchen...” Lena went over to the refrigerator, her eye easily drawn to the fact that the entire surface was covered in photographs and colorful magnets. Kara was in most of them, either hugging somebody or caught laughing on camera. She noticed the same dark-haired women in about a third of them, usually hugging Kara.

“This must be your sister, Alex.” said Lena, not really asking, pointing to a photo of Kara and Alex with their arms wrapped around each other. Kara leaned into Lena’s shoulder to get a look.

“Yep. That was the day she graduated from FBI training,” said Kara, a little sad she had to tell a white lie as no one was supposed to know about the DEO.

“What’s this?” said a surprised Lena. Her hand reached out and touched the yellow piece of paper. “Is... is this my coupon from Barney’s Bowlarama?” She turned her head to look at Kara, who was rendered mute and turning an adorable shade of pink. “How… how did you get it? I gave it to the waitress.” stammered Lena.

“I might or might not have tracked down said waitress and asked for it back,” explained Kara.

“Why?” asked Lena.

“Why?" Kara's eyebrows went into her hairline. "Because you made it. You made it for me,” she turned towards Lena. “I wasn’t about to let that just be crumpled up and thrown away.”

Lena was silent for a few beats, just enough to make Kara uncomfortable. Had she overstepped a boundary, she worried? “Thank you. I think that is sweet,” Lena said, cupping Kara’s jaw and kissing her cheek. Kara released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding, her jaw buzzing where Lena had touched her. She cleared her throat.

“Dining table and game night table over there,” she continued the tour. “You remember the kitchen island where we shared a bear claw,” she turned and smirked at Lena, “And… um… through that door is the bedroom.” Kara had no idea how to proceed right now, so she decided to let Lena take the lead.

“Oh really,” said Lena in her must seductive voice. She captured Kara’s hand and started walking. Kara mentally prayed she did not leave any clothes out on the bed, or worse, on the floor. They entered the room and Kara flipped on the overhead light switch. Lena surveyed the room, in one corner was a queen bed, freshly made, a colorful quilt on top, with small end tables at either side. A dresser, closet and makeup table took up the other two walls, and a door that lead to the bathroom. Kara went to the side of the bed and turned on a small lamp and stood back, trying to see it through Lena’s discerning eyes, biting her lip.

“This is charming,” said Lena earnestly, turning to Kara. “Um, I’m a little embarrassed, but do you have a sleep shirt I can borrow?” Lena asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Kara, surprised at the request, as her brain distinctly remembered something about being naked… or had she imagined that? After a second, she moved over to the dresser and got out a white three-quarter length baseball T-shirt with blue sleeves and some light weight running shorts. She handed the pile of clothing to Lena.

“I’ll just go and brush my teeth in the bathroom. That is, if you can lend me a tooth brush. Or I could use yours, considering we were just kissing...” she flashed a hint of a teasing smile at Kara.

“I’ll do you one better. My Mom always gives me her extra tooth brush she gets when she visits the dentist because she still thinks I am thirteen years old and can’t visit a drug store by myself. You can have one of my many spares.” Kara walked into the bathroom and opened a drawer and true to her word, pulled out a brand new tooth brush still in its original packaging. She left it on the counter and opened another drawer. “Toothpaste in here. Fresh towels in that cabinet.” She flashed Lena a smile as she exited the bathroom. Lena closed the door. Kara took this opportunity to quickly dress in a T-shirt and sleep shorts, not sure about what this night will bring.

Lena emerged shortly thereafter, looking adorable in Kara’s clothes that were too large for her delicate frame. “I’ll just brush my teeth, too,” said Kara, starting for the bathroom door.

“Do you have a preference on which side?” asked Lena.

“Uh, which side?” asked a confused Kara, sticking her head out of the bathroom.

“Yes, which side of the bed do you prefer?” Suddenly, at the mention of the word ‘bed,’ Kara’s heart skipped a beat and her palms started to get sweaty.

“Oh, um, I kinda sleep in the middle when I am by myself, so you pick,” said Kara, pushing up her glasses, feeling the heat on her face.

“Okay, how about I take the side closest to the bathroom?” said Lena.

“Sure,” said Kara, escaping into the bathroom. After removing her glasses to splash cold water on her face to somewhat calm down, she also brushed her teeth. She came out of the bathroom, glasses in hand, to see Lena sitting up on her chosen side of the bed. Kara crossed the room to the light switch by the door and saw Lena start to move under the overs. She smiled uneasily at Lena as she turned the overhead fixture off, leaving only the light from the small bedside lamp to illuminate the room.

As the overhead light faded to black, she saw Lena remove the shirt she was borrowing from Kara and throw it on the foot of the bed. Kara gulped. Was that a flash of breast she had seen? As she made her way around to her ‘side’ of the bed, she saw Lena’s hands disappear beneath the covers as she laid back on the bed and a pair of shorts soon followed the shirt to the end of the bed, a pair of underwear falling out of them as they landed. Kara guessed that answered her question about sleeping naked.

She placed her glasses on the bedside table and turned off the lamp, then quickly wrenched her shirt over her head and tossed it in the general direction of Lena’s abandoned garments. She placed two thumbs on either side of her hips and yanked down her underwear and shorts in one fluid motion and hoped the found their friends at the foot of the bed in the dark.

She slid under the covers, naked, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, a crack of street light coming from around the curtains from the far window, wondering what to do next. She didn’t have to wait long as she felt the mattress move and Lena pressed into her side.

“Why are you always so warm?” asked Lena contentedly, as Kara, laying on her back, automatically encircled Lena’s shoulders with her arm. Lena laid her head on Kara’s shoulder, tucking her hands under her chin. After a few seconds, Lena said, “Is this okay? Are you going to be able to sleep with me like this?”

Before Kara could answer, she felt Lena shift up her body, her head sliding off her shoulder and more onto Kara’s pillow. However, Lena had thrown her leg over Kara’s thigh, and now that she had essentially moved up her body, Lena’s bent her knee was effectively resting between her crotch. Her naked crotch.

“Good night, Kara,” breathed Lena into Kara’s ear, one of Lena’s arm resting lightly on her stomach.

Kara had never been so turned on in her life.

---

Soon, Kara felt the body that was draped across hers slowly relax, Lena’s breath evening out. Normally Kara listened to Lena’s heartbeat as a sort of metronome, background noise narrating the time she spent in her company. Now she felt it more than heard it, on top of her chest. She stayed awake for hours just reveling in holding the dark-haired woman, smelling her light perfume and her essence, feeling like she had never been so present with a person, even though the other person was currently passed out on top of her.

Eventually, Lena rolled over on her side, away from Kara, sighing in her sleep. Kara instantly missed the contact. After a moment’s hesitation, Kara chased her back to her side, spooning around the smaller woman’s body. Lena had pulled her legs up close to her body and Kara echoed that with her own legs so it felt like Lena was sitting in her chair, Kara noticed with a grin on her face.

The only problem was Kara was unsure what to do her arm. One was currently between her and Lena’s body, but the one not against the mattress had pulled up the covers and as it dove back under, wasn’t sure where to land. She settled for resting it lightly on Lena’s hip. She felt a hand come to rest over the top of her arm and take her wrist, moving it and then entwining their fingers and pulling their joined hands under Lena’s chin, making her arm rest in Lena’s cleavage. After Kara got over the initial shock, it felt nice to just hold the dark-haired woman so intimately.

Sometime later, Kara must have finally dozed off, the scent of Lena’s hair filling her nostrils. She awoke when Lena pulled her arm back and slipped out of the covers. Kara looked up in a daze to see her disappear into the bathroom. She moved back over to her side of the bed. Soon Lena came out and slipped back under the covers. Kara was on her side facing her, and Lena mirrored the pose, scooting closer to the middle, stopping a few inches from Kara’s face, tangling their feet. Both women stared into each other’s eyes.

“Hi,” said the blonde.

“Hi, back.”

“How did you sleep?” enquired Kara.

“Best sleep of my life,” green eyes flashed playfully.

“Is that so?”

A companionable silence grew.

“What time is it?” Lena asked, breaking the silence.

“Um, about 6:20 AM,” answered Kara, who had glanced at her alarm clock while Lena was in the bathroom. Lena was unsure what to do with that information. However, she was saved by a sudden wiggling of Kara’s body. A sure tell she was getting an idea.

“Lena Luther, would you go on a third-date breakfast-date with me?”

“Why Kara Danvers,” she chuckled, “I would be delighted.”

“Okay, wait here,” said the blonde woman, getting up out of bed and reaching for her discarded clothing. Lena only risked a slight peek at the lithe body quickly maneuvering into a t-shirt and boy shorts.

After quickly putting herself together and putting on her glasses, Kara crossed the room by memory and said to Lena, “Shade your eyes,” and opened the curtains and pulled up the window shade. Sunlight came streaming in, and even though forewarned, Lena felt herself wincing. Kara opened the bedroom door and padded out into the kitchen. Lena took this opportunity to find her own sleep clothes she had borrowed from Kara and put on a shirt and her underwear and then pulled up the covers over herself again.

Lena heard the sound of the front door being opened and a few moments later Kara was back in the bedroom, handing Lena the National City Gazette. Kara helped Lena sit up and placed the pillows behind her to read the newspaper. “Something to occupy your mind while I make breakfast,” Kara told Lena. She then left the room again, closing the bedroom door.

Truthfully, when Kara had proposed a third-date breakfast-date, Lena had thought they were going to get dressed and go to a restaurant, have some eggs and pancakes and then come back here to Kara’s apartment and get right back to this bed, because everyone knew what happened after a third date. And she had made it painfully clear she wanted to sleep with Kara in last night’s confession after the dance.

Her self-doubts were momentarily stopped by the strong smell of coffee coming from the kitchen, and was that a hint of cinnamon she also smelled? Soon Kara came in carrying a tray with little fold out legs. Lena folded the paper and placed it on the end table near her side. Kara placed the tray on the bed, and it just fit over Lena’s lap. She then moved to the other side of the bed.

“Grab the coffees,” Kara instructed, pointing with her chin at the tray. Lena was momentarily confused and then lifted the two steaming coffee cups off of the tray. Kara slid in her side of the bed and maneuvered across the mattress, shaking Lena’s body. It was good call to have Lena hold the coffee cups as they definitely would have spilled with all of the jostling of the bed. When Kara seemed settled at her side, Lena handed one mug to her and took a hesitant sip out of hers.

“Mm, this is delicious, so fresh tasting” Lena said, surprised at the richness of the flavor.

“I used my French press on some dark roast this time. It gives it a nice, earthy flavor, doesn’t it?” Lena agreed with a nod of her head and Kara looked away because what she negated to say was that the reason it tasted so fresh was that she had flown to Columbia just a few minutes minutes ago to pick up the coffee beans from a local farm. One of the perks of being able to fly at Super speed.

“And what do we have here?” Lena asked at the plate that was covered in an honest-to-god stainless steel dome. An actual plate cover. Lena wasn’t sure if her kitchen even had pots and pans and here this girl had a metal cover like you would get from room service at a hotel. She lifted it and her nose was assaulted by cinnamon and sugar. “Cinnamon Toast?” she laughed good-naturedly.

“It was all I could make on such short notice,” huffed the blonde woman, taking one of the four pieces of toasted bread covered in melted butter and sprinkled liberally with sugar and cinnamon and taking a bite, leaning over the plate and rubbing her shoulder against Lena. Lena also picked up a piece of toast and took a bite, and maybe because her stomach was rumbling, thought it was heavenly.

“Kara, this is perfect, thank you for making it,” she said sincerely as she tuned to Kara, their faces close. Lena finished one and one quarter of the pieces of toast and Kara had two and three-quarters of the toast, stopping her chewing only once to kiss/lick some sugar off of the side of Lena’s mouth.

The coffee drunk, the toast in crumbs, Lena pulled out her newspaper from the bedside table. She made a show of unfurling the paper, rattling it open and holding it up to her face, blocking her view of the room and of Kara from her. “Let’s see, what’s interesting in the news?” she said in a teasing voice.

Lena felt the tray being lifted from her legs and heard it set down somewhere in the corner of the room. A few seconds later she felt a weight on the bed. “You know, I have it on good authority today’s newspaper is not very newsworthy,” said Kara’s disemboweled voice. Lena felt first one knee, then another knee be placed on either side of her thighs, in a similar spot to where the breakfast tray had been a few seconds ago.

“Is that so?” answered Lena in a disinterested voice, still holding the paper up in front of her face. She felt the weight of one hand indent the bed on the side of her hip, then the other.

“Yep,” said Kara, from the other side of the newspaper, her voice very close. “Not a single newsworthy story in it at all. Not worth the time to read it.”

Lena asked in her regular voice, “Isn’t this the paper that is owned by CatCo Worldwide Media and the company in which you will shortly be an intern?” She almost looked over the paper at Kara. Almost.

“Oh, um, yes. Ture. That is true,” Kara answered. Lena saw a hand appear above the crease of the paper “Tomorrow’s newspaper will be chock full of newsworthy stories, I promise. But this issue is not worth your time.” The hand now started to lower the paper very slowly, as if a curtain was slowly being lifted in reverse.

“Are you saying this newspaper is as bogus as our third date breakfast date?” asked Lena, doing her best to look down at the paper and not at what it was slowly revealing.

“This third date was not bogus,” came a laughing voice. Lena couldn’t help herself, she looked up, the paper now essentially crumbled in her lap. Kara was on all fours over her body, stunning blue eyes staring back. “And how did these clothes get back on you?” The hand that had crumbled the newspaper moved and pulled at the hem of her T-shirt.

“Hmmm, what should we do after a third date?” asked Lena, sinking down into the pillows, never taking her eyes off of Kara’s. Kara pushed the newspaper to the floor and chased her down the bed, one hand still on the edge of her shirt, one hand now holding up her weight near Lena’s head. “I could think of a few things. But first, we need to divest you of this shirt.”

Lena leaned up at the same time Kara leaned back and straddled her hips, removing it over her head. By wordless agreement, Lena sat further up and helped Kara shed hers, taking a moment to finally view those rock-hard abs that she had been dreaming about ever since she first touched elbowed them at the bowling alley. Her curiosity of Kara’s abs sated, Lena laid back down on the bed, Kara following. Kara’s lips captured Lena’s. The kiss tasted of sugar and cinnamon and freshly roasted coffee beans and the undeniable essence of Lena.

The kiss deepened as Kara put all of her weight on Lena, covering her like a blanket. Lena wrapped her arms around Kara’s neck, pulling her impossibly closer. Both women sighed as skin touched skin. Kara’s tongue asked for entrance into Lena’s mouth. Mouths were opened, tongues greedily exploring the other. Soon Lena pulled back, her breath ragged.

“Houston, we have a problem,” Kara joked.

“Oh,” said Lena, not much capable of forming a sentence with more than one word.

“Yes, there’s a blanket between us,” said Kara as she glanced down at the blanket still half covering Lena’s body. Lena smiled up at her. Kara slid off of Lena and Lena helped her get under the covers, both women taking the time to remove underwear and throw them to the netherworld.

Both women now faced each other, hands and lips stilled. Kara was the first to recover. She propped her head up on her elbow and ran a hand up Lena’s shoulder. “So beautiful,” she whispered as she looked down her body, drinking her in, the perfect, full breasts, the ident at her waist, the smooth stomach. Kara can’t help but stare, as if this is a rare sighting of a woodland creature and any sudden moves will cause it to disappear. With Kara’s eyes still on her, Lena slowly rolled onto her back, the covers stopping at her hips. Kara slowly, reverently, traced a finger down Lena’s arm and made a U-turn at her forearm, running it back up. She kept the touch feather light. Lena felt the delayed effect of goosebumps seconds behind wherever Kara’s finger trailed.

Kara moved her finger across Lena’ shoulders and down her other arm and back up, the whole time staring into Lena’s eyes. She then trailed it down her chest and circled her belly button. Lena involuntarily pulled away at the touch. “Sorry, was that...” began Kara.

“Ticklish,” said Lena, not breaking eye contact. Not wanting to break eye contact. Ever. Kara added a second finger as her hand disappeared under the covers and caressed her hip and thigh and then slowly made her way back up. The fingers circled around Lena’ public hair and Lena drew in a sharp intake of breath. The fingers now made the trek back to Lena’s belly button and after taking time to dip in, went up the middle of Lena’s chest and continued to Lena’s neck. Kara’s hand continued and caressed Lena’s jaw so tenderly, Lena suddenly felt shy, as if this were her first time. Fingertips brushed against her ear and Lena shivered.

Two fingers made their way down her neck and one dropped away so a single finger trailed down the middle of Lena’s chest, and came back around to her breast, her prefect, full breast. She brushed the top of her finger against the curve of it. The simple touch in the silence was electric for both of them. Lena’s body instantly stiffened and Kara gave a sharp intake of breath. That wasn’t all that stiffened. Kara looked down, and drew her finger around Lena’s areola, watching as the pink nub of Lena’s nipple hardened. She circled it gently with the tip of her index finger. Lena felt the seconds move like hours, but in a good way. All she could feel was this moment, shared with Kara.

Kara, keeping her eyes on Lena, slowly lowered her mouth to Lena’s hardened nipple and gently caressed and licked, lavishing her breast with the attention it deserved, her hand running up Lena’s side. She then repeated the process on her other nipple, scraping her teeth on it that sent shivers coursing through Lena’s body. Kara kissed her way up Lena’s neck and their lips met in a searing kiss. Kara moved her body under the covers and partly covered Lena’s. Kara gasped as Lena slide a thigh between her legs, her wetness evident as she gently moved her body up and down her thigh.

Kara broke the kiss and reached back and flung the covers off of their bodies so she could take in Lena’s entire body, not wanting to miss a square inch. The curve of her hips, the V of her legs. She drank in the sight. She then brought their lips back together, slickening Lena’s thigh as she moved slowly, sensuously up and down it.

Kara traced patterns down the side of Lena’s body, her stomach, taking her time as she kissed down Lena’s neck. Kara began playing with the small patch of hair between Lena’s thighs, slowly running her middle finger in between the folds.

“You’re so wet,” Kara murmured into Lena’s neck, amazed.

“That’s the effect you have on me,” said Lena, who arched her neck back to give Kara more access to kiss the pulse point on her neck.

Kara pressed deeper into Lena’s wetness and was rewarded with a gasp. She moved her body up Lena’s again and captured her lips, deepening the kiss. Lena threaded her fingers through Kara’s golden locks. Kara slowly encircled Lena’s clit, and Lena bucked her hips up at the touch. Kara applied more pressure to her clit, feeling the wetness double. Her own groin pulsated with pleasure.

Kara moved her finger though Lena’s folds and came back to her clit, teasing it. Lena’s broke the kiss to push her head sideways into the pillow. Kara took this opportunity to attach her lips to Lena’s neck, at her jawline, sucking lightly and stroking harder at her clit.

Lena started to pant, her breath coming faster and faster, matching the pressure Kara was applying to her, her own center throbbing. “Don’t stop,” Lena said with a pleading sigh. Kara moved her finger just right and Lena called out her name. She was close, Kara could tell, yet so was she. How was it possible that the mere sight of Lena aroused beneath her was enough to push her to the edge?

“I’m so close,” breathed Lena, her hands now fisting the bedsheet, her back arched off the bed, her body rigid “So close….” Kara leaned up to Lena’s ear. “Let go,” she whispered, her breath hot against her ear, “Come with me.”

That was all it took. Lena closed her eyes and everything turned white as the strongest wave of pleasure she’d ever experienced crashed through her body. Kara felt Lena’s body harden and shudder as she toppled over the edge. Kara, rubbing herself over Lena’s thigh, followed closely behind, coming without Lena even touching her, as if the connection between them was so strong she felt Lena’s orgasm, too. It was such a shared intimacy, coming together, and it felt so profound. It felt better to her than her own solo orgasm ever could.

Kara moved her finger over Lena’s clit slowly, giving her pleasant little hills of pleasure until Lena turned her head and captured Kara’s lips tenderly. Kara pulled back and brought her fingers up to nose and smelled, then tasted Lena’s arousal. Lena’s eyes widen at the gesture.

“Do you want me to…” Lena asked. Kara laid her head down next to Lena’s on the same pillow.

“Can’t you tell I already came?” Kara breathed out. Lena moved her hand and inserted it between her thigh and Kara’s center, slipping a finger in her wetness.

“Oh my god, you so did,” laughed Lena softly, withdrawing her hand and slipping a finger in her own mouth. It was Kara’s turn to wider her eyes. “You taste wonderful,” said Lena, her eyes glittering in the morning light. Kara moved to the side, both women facing each other. Kara stared into her green eyes, laying her arm across Lena’s belly. Lena laid her arm on top of it, staring back into blue. They stayed like that for several long minutes before both woman closed their eyes, cradled in each other’s arms.

They woke several hours later, and this time Lena rolled on top of Kara, fingers and lips seeking, probing, getting to taste more of the blonde woman. Much more.

Several hours after that, Kara and Lena got out of bed, found their discarded bed clothes and Kara cooked a real breakfast for them, putting Lena to work to chop the veggies for the omelet as they bumped into each other in the kitchen, the sun slanting across the sky.

---

They settled into a routine in the coming weeks. Lena spent that first Sunday night at Kara’s, where they just held each other as they slept, spent from their earlier rounds of love making. In fact, they spent the majority of their time at Kara’s apartment. Lena spent the night 3-4 times a week, mostly getting together in the evening, Kara making dinner, gently instructing Lena on how to help with kitchen prep. Evenings spent doing homework on opposite sides of the couch, legs entangled. Or a head on a shoulder, fingers entwined as they watched a movie.

For Lena, she couldn’t believe how easy it was to let Kara in, after a lifetime of holding people at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt. For Kara, she couldn’t believe how much she craved just talking to Lena, basking in her presence, seeking out her opinion on everything, feeling satisfied when she shared her day with her.

Oddly, Lena still kept her Friday night lab nights and Saturday night became their date night. Sometimes they met at the campus coffee shop during the weekday. Kara had numerous “study dates” to cover her time as Supergirl, Lena content to either go home and work on homework or, more enjoyably, do her homework on Kara’s couch, waiting for her to come back.

It had been two weeks into their relationship when Kara had introduced Lena to her sister at game night. Alex’s girlfriend Maggie had been there, as well as Winn and her friend from Catco, James Olsen. Kara had figured Alex couldn’t threaten Lena with other people around as witnesses. She had also made sure to rig it so Alex and Lena were partners for the game “Facts in Five,” and the two like-minded nerds got a high score when the category was elements from the periodic table and they filled in their game sheet three times over. The two enjoyed their success so much that they had chosen each other as partners in Trivial Pursuit and ran the board while Kara and Maggie had just one piece of pie to their names and Winn and James had none.

They only went to Lena’s apartment twice during the following months, Kara sensing Lena’s anxiety the whole time, since the space reminded her of her family and her impending obligation to take over LutherCorp.

When Kara walked in, the first time, it was as Lena described. Tastefully appointed. Impersonal. Sterile, even. However, when she walked into the seldom-used kitchen, she saw a familiar stuffed unicorn on the granite counter, curled around an Art and Wine Festival wineglass. The glass itself was filled with white colored rocks, a single artificial red rose sticking out of it. She touched the unicorn and had smiled over at Lena, sharing the memory.

Her eyes had then glanced over the pristine countertops and appliances until they had come to rest on the large stainless steel fridge larger than her car. There, on the shiny, sleek surface was one Tech Museum ticket stub, a yellow wrist band from the Art and Wine Festival and six haphazardly placed photos, all held up with fruit magnets most likely purchased at the grocery store.

Kara had walked closer to the photos and realized they were all of her, in silhouette, backlight by a setting sun, waving a ribbon in the air. Lena had captured her that day at the Art and Wine Festival waving her ribbon streamer and had taken the time to print the photos out and hang them on her expensive refrigerator. Also on the fridge between a banana and orange magnet had been the sketch Lena had made of her in the alcove of the Tech Museum. Kara had touched the corner and turned back to give Lena an easy smile. She had recognized Lena’s first attempt to make the company-paid for apartment her own space, and all the artifacts were things they had done together.

Chapter Text

It was in the third month of dating that Lena realized graduation was only two weeks away and she was supposed to take over as CEO of LutherCorp. To say she had some trepidation was an understatement. To say she was terrified of the huge responsibility placed on her back and that she couldn't catch her breath would be more accurate. And when she was afraid of a task, she did what she always did: she gathered as much information as she could about the problem and studied it like her life depended on it.

The fact that Lena was throwing herself at getting to know everything about her soon-to-be company didn’t upset Kara. In fact, she had her own side project in addition to school. It turns out a large amount of anti-alien weapons were flooding National City and she and the DEO were busy night and day chasing down leads and raiding warehouses to try to find out where they were coming from. So far, Supergirl had made three different busts and the team had confiscated crates of weapons and captured a few of the petty criminals pedaling them, but they either weren’t talking about where the source was or were purposefully kept in the dark and truly didn't know.

---

Kara touched her ear and talked to Alex, who was running point for the DEO on this mission. “Okay Alex, it looks like our source was right, I see the warehouse. There are a lot of crates, so my X-ray vision is having a hard time seeing exactly what is inside, though.”

“Roger that, Supergirl. Proceed with caution. Our source said there were booby traps laid out to keep out prying eyes,” spoke Alex into her ear.

“Copy that.” Supergirl landed at a door and twisted the doorknob to break the lock. She felt a slight tingling in her hand and when she went through the door, discovered the door knob had been hooked up to 1,000 volts, enough to kill a human several times over. She breathed a sigh of relief that she was the first one to go through the door and none of the human agents got hurt. “Door handle hooked up to a battery to deliver an electrical shock. Dismantling now,” she relayed to Alex. After disconnecting all the wires to the battery, she made her way deeper into the warehouse through the maze of boxes and crates.

She was so attuned to looking ahead for another trap that she didn’t realize she had broken a trip wire until it was too late. She instinctively shielded herself with her cape and a barrage of bullets struck her harmlessly. Again, she was lucky she was going in alone to take out these traps for the team. She used her heat vison to melt the two guns pointed at her location. “Guns on a trip wire dismantled,” she told Alex.

She continued on and this time she saw it. A part of the floor was a different color. When she looked closer, she could see the material was different. Using her X-ray vision, she realized it was a pressure plate and there was a bomb underneath the piece of floor. She carefully took up the flooring, removed the bomb and pulled the detonation wires. She placed it aside on a crate. “Bomb under pressure plate removed, disarmed and placed off to the side,” she told Alex.

She made her way to a large cavernous room. “Okay, I am in the large part of the warehouse. All traps are dismantled,” she reported. “Easy Peasy.”

“Yeah, too easy,” murmured Alex. “Tell me what you see now, Supergirl.”

“The center of the warehouse is mostly empty except for some crates near a long table in the center. Heading there now.”

“Empty? Our source told us we would find the warehouse full of weapons. This doesn’t make any sense,” said Alex.

“There is a box in the middle of the table. I can’t see what’s inside. Stand by.”

“Can’t see inside… Supergirl, don’t open the box. Don’t open the box!” shouted Alex into her radio. Her words were drowned out by Kara’s screams of pain.

“Supergirl, come in, what’s happening?” Alex got no answer, so she spurred into action. “Alpha team, with me! Svensson, call in a medical chopper to land at our location.” The team ran into the warehouse in the same path Kara had cleared, Alex running point, trusting that all the traps has been disabled. When she got to the large room, she saw Kara lying unconscious on the ground, the box knocked over by her side, red light glowing from it.

Alex knelt by Kara, closing the lid to the box. The box was heavy in her hands. Lead-lined, that’s why Karta couldn’t’ see into it with her X-ray vision, she thought. “Take this box back to the lab and have it examined,” she told two of her agents. She turned Kara over. She looked pale and waxy, and the red glowing substance seemed to be pulsating around in her veins. It must be some sort of synthetic Kryptonite, she surmised. She also couldn’t find a pulse.

“Supergirl has been exposed to an unidentified agent, we have to get her back to the DEO. You two, grab Supergirl’s arms. Wilson, grab one end of her cape!” Alex took the other end, and the four agents lifted her up and started to run back the way they came, using her cape as a make-shift stretcher. They exited the building and Alex saw the medical helicopter, which always hovered a few minutes away on dangerous missions, had landed. “Take her to the chopper,” she directed.

They loaded her in and the three other agents stepped back. Alex grabbed the hand-held oxygen bag and placed it over Kara’s face. She instructed the medic to continue to force air into Kara’s lungs and to breathe for her. “Take us to the DEO medical unit as fast as you can,” she shouted, beginning CPR compressions on Kara’s chest.

The ride only took six minutes, but it seemed to take six hours in Alex’s mind, out of her head with worry for Kara. They moved the stretcher out on the tarmac as soon as the chopper set down and a medical team hooked Kara up to a stand to give her a pint of blood, as Alex had radioed ahead a course of action. “Get that blood in her and get her to Med Bay one,” she ordered, knelling over Kara's prone body and still administering the compressions. 

When Kara was feeling healthy, once a month, Alex made her donate a pint of blood to their stock so they would always have her blood on hand in case of an emergency. Kara always hated the chore and whined when it happened, saying she was invincible and would never get hurt. Especially since they had to use a Green Kryptonite-tipped needle to break her skin, and she felt woozy for half a day afterwards. Now, Alex was glad she had saved up for a rainy day, as it was a hurricane right now.

“A regular needle went in her arm to add the blood, Agent Danvers,” said the med tech. Oh, that was bad, that was very bad indeed. Alex's mind reeled as she continued to kneel on the stretcher, still giving CPR.

When the stretcher was wheeled into Med Bay one, another med tech took over the CPR compressions. Alex climbed down and stood back, trying to think. If this were just regular Green Kryptonite, they would give her a treatment of increased sunlight. This element was so strong it had stopped her heart.

 “Hook her up to the EMCO machine. That will breathe and pump her blood for her. And bring in the blood transfusion machine,” she barked.

---

The first 24 hours were touch and go, Alex never leaving Kara’s side. Her hunch had been correct, it was indeed Red Kryptonite, the lab confirmed, and the synthetic ore absorbed by her body had not only stopped her heart, it thickened her blood and made it hard to move in her veins after they had hooked her up to the EMCO machine, which acted as her heart.

But Alex was good at thinking on her feet, and she pulled out four liters of Kara’s tainted blood and ran it though a blood-dialysis machine to clean it, replacing the missing blood with her stored blood. Then the cleaned blood was added back into her blood stream and they withdrew another four liters to clean it, Kara remaining in a coma the whole time. Slowly, slowly her blood was being filtered down and the Red Kryptonite extracted.

It was at the 36th hour that Maggie found Alex slumped over, asleep, her head on Kara’s hospital bed, right by her side. Maggie was granted access to the DEO due to their work together on a previous case. She also had guessed Kara’s secret identity by watching Alex’s protectiveness towards the Superhero when they were working on the case.

Alex woke when she walked in and her eyes instantly flew to Kara, checking all the machines, making sure everything was still running smoothly. “Hey, how’s she doing?” asked Maggie gently, putting her hand on Alex’s shoulder and squeezing. She had received a curt text yesterday from Alex about the situation and Maggie had come to check on Kara, yes, but also her girlfriend. Alex filled her in on the prognosis and all she was doing to help Kara fight the effects of the Kryptonite.

“She’s lucky to have a dedicated big sister at her side,” said Maggie gently, brushing a stray lock back from Alex’s eyes. She didn’t tell her girlfriend she looked like hell and needed to get some rest as well. She knew it would be useless. Alex was devoted to Kara 100%.

“What did you tell Lena?” asked Maggie. Alex looked at her blankly. “Supergirl has been in this hospital bed in the DEO for a day and half. Kara Danvers has been missing from National City for the same time. Lena must be frantic if Kara hasn’t contacted her.”

“Gosh, you’re right, Maggie, I didn’t think of that,” said Alex with a look of worry on her face.

“Hey, it’s okay, you had other things on your mind. Like trying to keep Kara alive. Why don’t you text Lena from your phone and make up some excuse for Kara.”

“Okay, that’s a good idea,” agreed Alex. Maggie’s cell phone rang and she stepped aside from Kara’s bed to take the call. She answered in monosyllables and then hung up.

“I hate to do this to you, but I have to leave for work. One of my witnesses to a big case is at the station and freaking out about testifying. I have to go.” She kissed Alex’s cheek and gave a side hug to Alex still sitting in the chair. She squeezed Kara's lifeless foot after a glimpse at her face and then left.

The med tecs had removed Kara’s Supergirl uniform and dressed her in a black wickaway suit to keep her body warm during the blood transfusion. Her uniform was lying in a drawer by her bedside. Alex found her cape and dug our Kara’s jeans and her phone in the back pocket. She unlocked the phone with Kara’s password. Who uses the password ‘peanut butter jelly jam,’ she thought to herself, tears springing to her eyes with her worry for her sister.

She saw 10 texts and four missed calls, all from Lena. She hesitated for a moment, then typed out a message from Kara’s phone to Lena. She put the phone back in the drawer and continued her vigil over her sister.

---

On the morning of the third day, Kara woke up, groggy, her blood finally clean of all the synthetic Kryptonite. The first site she saw was her big sister asleep in a chair next to her bed, her hand in hers. Alex woke when Kara called her name, her voice gravelly from not being used. Alex sprung awake and began checking over Kara. Once she ascertained her vital signs were stable, Alex removed Kara from all the machines. Kara drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the day.

That night, she finally sat up in bed, Alex fussing over her pillows. Kara asked if there was anything to eat. Then and only then, did Alex breathe a huge sigh of relief for her sister. After having some food, and being told about her ordeal and that she had been out for three days, she asked about Lena.

“I, uh, texted her an excuse as to why you weren’t around,” said Alex, rubbing her neck.

“What? Let me see,” said Kara. Alex took Kara’s phone out of the charger she had set up for her and handed it to her.

Kara scrolled through the missed texts and then found the one Alex has sent.

“You told her I was overwhelmed with finals and the upcoming graduation and went to Midvale to be with Mom for a few days?” she asked disbelievingly. “Alex how could you?”

“I’m sorry. I guess I typed the first excuse that came into my head. I wasn’t thinking too clearly, what with me being out of my head with worry for you. Kara, you almost died,” she said imploringly.

“I know, I’m sorry. I am so appreciative of you bringing me back from the Red Kryptonite, Alex. This is just one of those cases where I really, really wish I could let Lena in on my secret identity.” Alex looked at her darkly, so she dropped the subject. “I have to go see her,” she told Alex.

“Kara, I don’t think that is a good idea,” began Alex. “You’re still very weak.”

“Let me just talk to Lena and then I will come back here to rest under the artificially sunlight you have set up for me, I promise. You can even drive me there and back if you’re so worried.” She knew this was the only way to appease Alex, plus she really was feeling weak and didn’t feel up to flying, let alone driving.

---

Lena leaned back in her desk chair in her condo and rubbed her eyes. She had been staring at her computer for hours. Her last final had been three days ago and she had planned on using this time to learn all she could about LutherCorp, the company she would be taking over shortly after graduation day, which was happening this Sunday. Today was Wednesday and it felt like time was running out. Or, conversely, it felt like time was moving through molasses. It had been six days since Kara had knocked on her door to explain in person where she had disappeared to for three days.

Kara had told her she freaked out over her finals and upcoming gradation and had retreated to her mother’s house in the city of Midvale. Lena could understand the freak out, really she could. What she couldn’t understand, and what she had told Kara, was why Kara couldn’t turn to her, her girlfriend, to voice these fears. Why Kara didn’t try to seek comfort in her, or even let her in on what she was feeling. Instead she had run away and didn’t want to see Lena. Hell, she didn’t even contact her until a day and a half had gone by and she was out of her head with worry.

They had been going out for three months and had been pretty inseparable. Lena was hurt on two fronts. Why didn’t she have an inkling of how Kara was feeling? Was she that bad of a girlfriend to not recognize she was struggling? The second hurt was that Kara chose not to confide in her. Again, was she that bad of a girlfriend that Kara couldn’t’ trust her with emotional pain?

Kara had apologized profusely, and Lena said she forgave her that night, but things had definitely cooled between them. They saw each briefly every couple of days since then, using the excuse of studying for finals and Lena studying up on her company as the reasons they didn’t get together, but it felt strained. And they certainly slept in their separate abodes, by Lena’s request.

She shook her head, trying to physically shake those feelings of hurt and inadequacy out of her. She also was frustrated by the data in front of her. She had a direct internet connection to LutherCorp and had been reviewing the financials all day. Something was off, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. There seemed to be an irregularity in materials and money, as if they were being diverted to a secret location. After doing some digging, which some people might say hacking, of certain corporate accounts, she discovered what looked like a secret sort of factory in the boondocks of Maine. It just didn’t make any sense. She would have to talk to Mark Cranzen, the interim CEO of the Corporation tomorrow and see if he could shed any light on the situation.

---

“Kara, again,” said a sweaty Alex, her fists raised, bouncing back and forth of the balls of her feet in her boxer’s pose. They had been drilling in one of the gyms in the basement of the DEO. Kara still hadn’t regained all of her Super strength after the incident with the Kryptonite, and was working on her fighting footwork and body positioning with Alex. Alex was still worried that Kara was not back at 100% capacity. Kara had taken a short test flight yesterday and when she landed looked very pained, even though she wouldn’t admit it to Alex.

“Alex, I’m done. I need to rest,” said a defeated Kara. Sure the Red Kryptonite had done a number on her body, but Lena’s distance had done a number on her heart. And she still hadn’t quite forgiven Alex for the text she had sent Lena. She had told Alex how angry she was the day after she had spoken to Lena at her penthouse. Alex had pointed out there was no good solution, and if she hadn’t contacted Lena, it would have been worse to keep her in the dark for three days. Sadly, Kara understood that was probably true. But with Lena now removed from her life after three straight months of having her at her side, in her bed, or just a text away, the distance made her feel numb, hollow.

“Sure, okay Kara, we can pick it up tomorrow,” said Alex, giving Kara as warm a smile as she could. Kara ducked her head and pushed past Alex to head to the locker room, a trail of sadness followed behind her.

---

The blonde flight attendant asked Lena if she could get her anything to eat or drink. Lena declined politely. When she had taken her suspicions to LutherCorp Interim CEO Mark Cranzen that morning that someone was funding a secret factory that was making illegal alien hunting weapons, he had been instantly concerned, looking over the evidence she had gathered. They both decided that this was coming from someone inside the company and they could trust no one. When Mark had asked if she had shared her findings with anyone else and she had said no, she was impressed with his swift thinking, saying they could use that to their advantage.

And that was why she found herself on his private corporate jet, ready to take off from National City Airport and head to Maine. He had promptly made a phone call to have the jet ready within two hours, telling her to fly to the regional office in Portland and meet with Tom Schneider, a trusted friend, to go over the shipping manifests there and see if they could figure out where the invoices were coming from or who ordered them.

She relaxed back in her seat. She took out her phone and opened a text message to Kara. When she couldn’t think of any words to write, she put her phone away.

---

As Kara was walking by the glass walls of Conference Room B, Alex looked up and waved her in. Maggie and Winn were already in the room having a heated conversation. “Winn, all signs are pointing towards someone in LutherCorp being behind these shipments of illegal alien hunting weapons. Can’t you hack their systems and get the evidence we need?” said Maggie.

“Maggie, one, that is illegal and unethical…” began Winn.

“When has that ever stopped you before?” snorted Alex.

Winn gave her a glare. “And two, even if I wanted to, LutherCorp has the most advanced security operations on the planet. I can’t get around their defenses. Plus, they almost caught me last time, and I am sure Deputy Director Danvers would not like an attempted hack of LutherCorp to be traced back to the DEO.”

“No, she would not,” said the Deputy Director herself.

“Wait,” said Kara, catching up to the conversation. “Are you saying that the illegal weapons we have been chasing all these months are originating from LutherCorp?” asked in a confused voice.

“Yes, we have strong suspicions, plus several planted sources feeding us verbal information at LutherCorp. But we need hard evidence,” answered Maggie.

Kara narrowed her eyes. “Where’s Lena Luther right now?”

---

The flight attendant moved to the front of the plane and pulled a curtain between her and the cabin where Lena was. Lena heard the pilot announce to prepare for departure. Once the plane took off, it climbed steeply, more steeply then she remembered feeling on commercial flights. Then she felt it bank sharply left before leveling off, relieved the plane was now even with the earth below her.

Then, to her surprise, the pilot pushed aside the curtain and walked into the cabin. “Ms. Luther, how are you enjoying the flight?”

“Uh, aren’t you supposed to be flying the plane?” asked Lena, instantly tensing up at seeing the pilot.

“Ah, these newer models practically fly themselves. Why, I took off with the simple touch of a button. Any civilian could have flown this plane” He gave what could only be described as a predatory smile at Lena, flashing neat white teeth.

“Is that so?” said Lena, who was suddenly feeling very uneasy.

“You want to hear something funny?” He asked. Lena did not. She also wondered where was the flight attendant, craning her neck slightly to peer past him.

“There are supposed to be eight parachutes on this plane, and yet…” here he turned from Lena and grabbed one out of the closet. “There’s only the one!” he said cheerily. Lena’s blood ran cold. Her eyes looked behind him again to see if she could see the flight attendant. She didn’t like being alone with him in the cabin.

He started to put on the parachute and strap it to his body. “If you’re looking for the flight attendant…” He looked up at Lena, then his body suddenly shifted and the flight attendance morphed out of his body, standing beside him. “She’s right here,” said the now materialized flight attendant in a feminine voice. “And now’s she’s not,’ said a male voice as the flight attendant morphed back into the pilot’s body.

“You’re a Vorsipellis,” she said stupidly. A shapeshifter. He was both the flight attendant AND the pilot. But a Vorsipellis wasn’t just any shapeshifter. They had the unique ability to split their body molecules into multiple people at the same time, independent of each other. Lena knew the name because she was very curious about their physiology and always wanted to study one. The fact her mind was bringing this up now was not very helpful.

“Right you are Ms. Luther. Too bad we didn’t meet under different circumstances, I’m betting you could be loads of fun.” He gave a small wave now that the parachute was firmly strapped to his back and grabbed the door handle to the jet and yanked. Lena checked that she was still wearing her seatbelt as the air from outside rushed into the cabin, and the Shapeshifter jumped from the plane.

---

Kara had rushed out of Conference Room B and to the balcony where she could land and take off. She barely registered Alex shouting her name. She flew up in the air, her chest instantly hurting as if someone had punched her very hard. A very strong someone. Nevertheless, she started to search National City for Lena’s heartbeat.

After several minutes of frantic searching, she couldn’t find it. She pushed through the pain she was feeling flying and widened her search. Then she heard Alex’s voce in her ear through her transmitter. “Supergirl, Lena was spotted at the National City Airport getting on a corporate jet just a little while ago.”

That’s why she couldn’t find her heartbeat, she had been searching the ground. Now she scanned the skies and instantly found the signature beat. However, Lena’s heartbeat was extremely elevated. She flew off in that direction, trying hard to ignore the pain.

She spotted the jet up ahead. To her surprise, she saw the door of the plane open and someone jump out, and a parachute being deployed a few seconds later. And that someone was not Lena. She was still on the airplane, her ears told her. She had to get to Lena. She put on a burst of speed, only to feel excruciating pain rack her body and had to instantly slow down.

She was distracted by a flash of white on the ground. Then she realized it was a missile, heading right for the jet. She couldn’t make herself fly any faster. She was not going to get there to stop the missile, she realized. In a flash of brilliance, she blew out a mighty breath with all of her might and it knocked the missile off course, but only slightly. It still tore off the cockpit, instead of hitting squarely in the middle of the plane. Kara screamed as she watched the plane spiral down out of the air.

She dove after it, pain be damned. She grabbed an edge where the cockpit had been, pulling it out of the tail spin it was in, pain like fire shooting up her arms.

“Supergirl?!?” said a most familiar and welcome voice, even if it was stressed out beyond belief. Kara, or rather Supergirl, looked down in the hole caused by the missile and saw Lena still strapped into her seat. The plane was now perpendicular to the earth, Lena’s seat tipped back 90 degrees, her back parallel to the ground.

“Lena,” whispered a relieved Supergirl. She felt her concentration slip in her relief, as well as her strength, and the plane lurched towards the ground a few more feet before she could stop it. Lena let out a scream.

Supergirl looked down again. Lena’s head was looking around the cabin wildly, as if she would be able to find something, anything to help her get out of this terrible situation. Supergirl looked over her shoulder. They were over the deepest part of Green Lake. If she dropped the plane, it would fall into the water.

“Ms. Luther, I can’t hold this plane up much longer. You need to unbuckle your seatbelt and stand on your chair, and then I can grab you and lift you out,” she yelled.

“What? No, I’m not taking this seatbelt off? Are you crazy?” said a panicked Lena, looking around the cabin again. She felt the plane slip again and let out a yelp.

“Lena, trust me,” said Supergirl in an even tone. Lena instantly snapped her head up to look at Supergirl. That sounded just like Kara, she thought. It was that fact that gave her the courage to undo her seatbelt and stand on the back of her seat.

“Good,” said Supergirl. “On the count of three, I want you to jump up off of the seat and I will let go of the plane and then grab your hands. Hold them up now.” She commanded. Lena did as she was told.

“One, two, three…” Lena trusted enough to jump. Supergirl actually pushed the plane down, her body relieved to have dropped the weight, and then grabbed for Lena’s hand. She used her two hands to grab one of Lena’s wrists. She paused for a second to take in the fact that her plan had worked and she was now holding Lena.

“It’s okay, I got you,” said Supergirl to Lena, hauling Lena up in the air and then cradling her under her knees and shoulder blades. Lena tucked her head under Supergirl’s chin and encircled her neck for dear life. Supergirl quickly flew towards the ground, her precious cargo intact, not sure if she was going to make it before her strength gave out.

She spotted the roof with relief, an empty, three-story parking garage and practically fell the last few yards to land on her feet, cradling Lena, her strength gone. She was glad the parking garage was three stories up in the air. She didn’t think she would have made it to the ground.

Supergirl gently placed Lena’s feet on the parking lot roof. She still clung to Supergirl’s neck, head on her chest. “Ms. Luther, are you alright?” asked Kara in her Supergirl voice, stepping back so she could look at her fully. Lena finally lifted her head away from Supergirl, disentangling her arms, and stared at her, her face in shock.

Kara had landed near the stairs of the parking garage, and Lena now stood next to the wall that rose out of the top of the parking garage that held the door. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?” Kara as Supergirl asked again, looking Lena over from head to toe.

“Kara, look out!” called Lena, who had seen the assailant approaching from the side. Kara stared at her mutely at the use of her name, the horror of the fact that Lena seemed to have guessed her secret identity registering for a fraction of a second until something barreled into her side, knocking her away from Lena. She rolled for several feet, not comprehending what was happening, when the shape that had knocked into her got up and swung and connected with her jaw, sending her sprawling backwards towards the back wall of the parking garage.

“Lena, stay back,” commanded Kara, her only thought for her safety, as she scrambled to her feet.

Lena put her hands to her mouth. When Supergirl had grabbed her from the plane and then cradled her for the trip to the ground, Lena had been terrified. Her head had instinctively tucked under Supergirls’s chin, eyes squeezed shut as they rapidly descended. Her ear had been against Supergirl’s left side, and that is when she heard it. A heartbeat. But not just any heartbeat. Kara’s heartbeat. How many nights had she laid with her head on her chest just like this and heard it? Strong and loud, and slightly slower than a nornal heartbeat. No wonder it had sounded just like Kara when ‘Supergirl’ had told her to trust her when the plane was blown open. Kara was Supergirl. Why hadn’t she noticed before? How could she have not noticed before?

“You. You ruined everything! I don’t get paid unless she dies,” said a white-haired shaggy being to Kara. It turned to look at Lena and then morphed into the pilot and flashed a wolf grin at her, taking a step towards her. “Shall we dance, beautiful?” said the Pilot to Lena.

It was the Vorsipellis. The Shapeshifter from the plane. It had wanted her dead. Before she could react, she saw Kara crash into his side, tackling him away from Lena. They both tumbled on the floor of the cement parking structure. Kara leaped to her feet, and the pilot split in two, two identical men now grinning at her.

“He’s a shapeshifter,” yelled Lena. Kara looked sideways at Lena and one of the pilots punched her in the head. She staggered several steps, turning her focus back to the two men, which now morphed into three men. A shapeshifter, thought Kara. Of all the ones she had met, no one had super strength like this. It must be because she was still weakened from Kryptonite and then the flight and holding up the airplane.

Now the Pilot morphed into four identical men and surrounded her. Kara tried to keep them all in her line of sight but it was impossible. In an instant they became six. The ones that ended up behind her kept attacking her, catching her off guard. She was feeling tired and lethargic, not something she wanted to feel at this moment.

Lena, still standing near the door of the roof of the parking garage, could only watch. Her brain noticed that with each morph, the pilot got smaller. It must be something to do with the mass of cells needed for each fully formed shape. It couldn’t just keep multiplying without losing mass, she thought, her panic momentarily forgotten.

Now that there were eight pilots and they seemed to be winning in their fight to beat up Supergirl. That’s when Lena heard noises at the door, and the sound of many heavy steps pounding on the stairs.

“It’s locked!” shouted a voice.

“Stand aside,” shouted another. Then, “Fire in the hole.” Lena knew enough military lingo to know to get away from the door. An explosive charge went off seconds later and the door blew out onto the roof and armed agents in black fatigues came pouring out of the stairwell. One shot at one of the shapeshifting Pilots. The bullet hit his shoulder and then the blood and hole slowly morphed away. Lena would have been fascinated if not scared out of her mind. Two agents came around and pointed their guns at Lena.

“Civilian!” yelled an agent, instantly pointing his weapon up in the air so as not to shoot her. The lead agent looked back at them and locked eyes with her. Alex Danvers! Of course, thought Lena. Kara’s sister works for the DEO to help keep an eye on her.

“Protect her,” Alex shouted at the agents. The two agents instantly moved to Lena, putting their backs to her with their weapons pointed outwards, one agent reaching his hand back across her waist to push her firmly against the wall. Lena wanted to keep her eyes on Supergirl or Kara, she corrected herself, and the fight with the Shapeshifter. She looked between the two agents and saw Kara was kneeling on the ground, catching her breath and the Shapeshifter was trying to morph all of his bodies back into one.

“Bring out the net,” shouted Alex, and two agents ran at the Shapeshifter and tossed what looked like an electrified net at it. The Shapeshifter had now morphed all his bodies into one and tried to dodge the net. The ShapeShifter almost succeeded as it moved quickly, but the net caught his arm and the arm tore off his body to be trapped under the net. The Shapeshifter, still in the Pilot body, screamed. Then it turned and ran to the edge of the parking garage, the DEO agents shooting at it. It dove over the edge and morphed into a large, Pterodactyl-type bird and spread its wings and frantically flew away from the roof.

Kara, somewhat recovered, got up and ran to the same edge of the roof and took off in the air. She then turned around and hovered over the parking garage and looked back at her sister Alex.

“Go! I’ve got Lena,” Lena heard Alex say into a transmitter on her wrist. Kara must have heard her, because she flashed her eyes briefly at Lena, then looked back at Alex and gave a curt nod, and flew away in pursuit of the Shapeshifter.

“Take that arm back to the DEO and put it in quarantine,” Alex commanded of the agents. She must be the leader of this mission, thought Lena.

“All clear,” another agent shouted and the agents protecting her moved away from her.

Alex walked over to Lena. “Ms. Luther, are you hurt? I should get you checked out at the hospital.”

Oh for heaven’s sakes, thought Lena. “Please, call me Lena,” she said disdainfully, not sure if she should laugh or cry at the absurdity of it all.

Alex spoke again into her wrist radio again. “Send Detective Sawyer up.”

“I’m fine, Agent Danvers, there is no need for you to send me to the hospital.”

“But you just had a missile knock your plane out of the sky,” Alex answered back. “We need to make sure there are no hidden injuries.”

“Yes, where I was saved by Supergirl,” she spat back. Alex’s face was unreadable at the moment, Lena noticed.

“Agent Danvers?” called a familiar voice from the stairs.

“Over here,” called Alex over her shoulder. Detective Sawyer turned out to be Maggie Sawyer, as in, Alex’s girlfriend that she had met at Kara’s game night. This just keeps getting better and better, thought Lena angrily.

“Lena, I believe you know Detective Sawyer,” said Alex. At least she wasn’t pretending they had never met.

“Yes, I believe I do,” she also kept her face a mask of neutrality, even though she could feel her fury burn bright.

“Lena, I know you have just had a huge shock, but can you think of any reason why anyone would fire a missile at you and want you dead,” asked Maggie getting right to the point. Lena could respect that.

“Actually, I can think of a reason why and I know who was behind the attack,” she answered. “I found out that LutherCorp is making illegal weapons that harm aliens, and the Interim CEO was the only one to know I was on that plane. He must have ordered the missile strike. The Pilot turned out to be a Shapeshifter and parachuted out just before the missile hit. Then Supergirl pulled me out of the wreckage of the plane and flew down here. When Supergirl landed on the roof, the Shapeshifter blindsided her and said he wouldn’t get paid if I wasn’t dead. They fought, and then Agent Danvers and team came up the stairs.”

“Lena, we have been tracking the illegal shipments of alien-killing weapons and believe they are coming from LutherCorp but don’t have any concrete proof. Can you help us get it?” asked Maggie. “We want to catch those who are responsible, and it sounds like Cranzen is in on it.”

“Yes, I have documentation on irregularities in materials and money from LutherCorp, and I bet I can find more” said Lena to Maggie.

“Plus we need to find the shapeshifting Pilot, see if we can get him to confirm it was Mark Cranzen who ordered the hit,” said Maggie, turning back to look at Alex.

“Supergirl is on it, plus we captured part of the Shapeshifter’s arm and took it to HQ.” said Alex to Maggie.

Supergirl. Bile rose in Lena’s throat at the name of the Superhero.

“First, we need to get Lena to a hospital to have them check her for injuries,” said Alex, moving towards Lena.

“Hold on,” said Maggie, holding her hand up and stopping Alex as the back of her hand hit Alex in the chest. “Right now, Mark Cranzen probably thinks Lena is dead, and the Shapeshifter is on the run. This is a perfect opportunity to have Lena help us get entry to LutherCorp’s computers and get the evidence we need to put these guys away. He won’t suspect anything because he thinks she’s at the bottom of a lake. We should keep the news that she is alive a secret, so no hospitals. No one can see her.” She lowered her hand, looking at Lena expectantly.

“I agree with the Detective,” said Lena to the two women. “We should keep the fact I am still alive a secret. I can work with Detective Sawyer to gather the evidence from LutherCorp remotely. I want to bring these bastards to justice!” Maggie gave her a somewhat feral smile to match her intensity. “Detective, can you take me somewhere there is a T1 line so I can have a dedicated internet connection to gain access to the LutherCorp system?”

“I know just the place. The Police Computer Lab would be perfect. I will make sure to clear everyone out so just you and I can work without you being seen,” answered Maggie. “And please, call me Maggie.”

Alex held out for a 46-minute argument with Maggie about Lena being up for this health-wise and if this was a wise plan before she let Maggie take Lena. But not before she made Lena take a quick physical in the DEO van by a medic, the one condition Alex had insisted on before Maggie spirited Lena away to the Police HQ.

Chapter Text

Alex had just made it back to the DEO to report to Director J'onn J'onzz, when Supergirl landed on the balcony, although falling onto the balcony would be a more apt description, as she crashed into a heap, exhausted from first fighting, then chasing after the Shapeshifter. Alex helped her up and put an arm around her waist. “She knows,” said Kara despondently to Alex, her face searching Alex’s features to see what she thought about it. There was no need to further explain who the ‘she’ was in the sentence.

“Shh, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out. Let’s get you taken care of first. I think a treatment from the yellow sun lamp will do you a world of good.” Alex signaled to another agent to take Supergirl’s other side as she couldn’t fully support Kara’s weight.

“What happened with the Shapeshifter?” Alex asked, changing the subject.

“I tracked it to the National Forest, where I lost it, and then came back here when I felt my powers fading.” And then she blacked out.

---

Maggie leaned back in her chair at the National City Police Computer lab and rubbed her temples. She had been sitting in this chair for almost six hours, looking over Lena’s shoulder as she gathered the evidence they needed. Now, three printers were going crazy spitting out the documentation for what Maggie hoped they needed to put the LutherCorp CEO away. Lena had been amazing, tunneling in through a backdoor to get access to the LutherCorp systems yet staying undetected from their security team, and then finding a secret cache of hidden files, including the ones Lena had shown Mark and he was now trying to destroy. Of course, they had all been encrypted, but Lena said she had a homegrown decryption program she invented. She cracked the code in three hours and 17 minutes.

Speaking of Lena, she wondered if she was as hungry as she was. Maggie had brought in a pizza, but that had been hours ago. In fact, where was Lena? Maggie consulted her watch. She had gone to the bathroom over 25 minutes ago, her most trusted officer escorting her, as they were still keeping it quiet that Lena was alive.

Maggie found the Ladies Room, Lena’s escort, a male officer, dutifully waiting outside. “Where the hell is Lena Luther?” she asked the officer.

“Um, inside the Ladies?” he said a little nervously, as if standing outside a Ladies restroom was going to give him cooties.

“Oh really,” said Maggie curtly. She pushed the door open and they both peered in. There were met with an empty restroom and an open window. “Son of a bitch,” said Maggie.

---

Kara woke up in a DEO hospital bed. She vaguely recalled making it back to the DEO before she collapsed, exhausted from chasing after the Shapeshifter. She felt the warm artificial yellow sunlight on her face. Strangely, she felt good, really good. Better than she had in a long time. She guessed the sun treatment was just what she needed. She checked the clock on the wall. A few minutes past 6 PM. She had been out for over six hours, no wonder she felt rejuvenated. Then she remembered Lena calling out her name before being hit by the shapeshifter. That had been no accident. She knew. She got up to go look for Alex to see what their next move was regarding the investigation of the weapons and then think about how she should approach Lena.

“… What do you mean she crawled out a bathroom window, Maggie?” Kara heard Alex on the phone as she rounded the corner. “Well, she couldn’t have gone far. I thought she was onboard with the plan to stay hidden so no one would know she didn’t die in the missile attack?” Alex turned around as she thought she heard a sound behind her, but the hallway was empty.

---

Lena walked along the long alleyway between her building and the next. She was headed towards the maintenance entrance near the corner. She had reprogrammed her keycard last year to give her access to all the doors in the building when she wanted to use the roof top pool after hours. Now she planned on using her magic keycard to sneak into her own building. After slipping out the bathroom window at Police headquarters, she wasn’t sure if Maggie had already thought to send over a patrol car to watch the front entrance of her building for her, so she wasn’t taking any chances of being seen.

She wanted to get inside her penthouse and grab her computer and then head over to LutherCorp. After shifting through hours of digital evidence, she became convinced the CEO, who had tried to have her killed, had some incriminating evidence including a ledger with all of the money he was making from the sale of the illegal weapons locked in a safe in his office. Her computer had a program that would unlock all the doors without anyone being able to trace it back to her or set off any alarms. She knew Maggie would have to get a warrant to get this kind of physical evidence and if she waited, there was a chance Mark could destroy it. This was her chance.

---

Kara had taken to the skies in her Supergirl outfit as soon as she had overheard Alex’s one-sided conversation with Maggie that Lena was missing. She searched for her heartbeat and found it at her building. Strange, thought Kara, she was in the alleyway next to her building. Kara flew down into some bushes and quickly changed into her civilian clothes. She had no idea what to say to Lena, and hoped something would come to her when she saw her. She took a deep breath and stepped into the alleyway, Lena ten yards ahead of her, was walking her way.

Lena looked up and then froze at the sight of the blonde woman. “Oh no. No! I have nothing to say to you,” she said angrily, holding up her hands up as if to ward her off. Kara stilled, terrified at moving. Lena stared at her for a few, hard seconds, her eyes green blades of steel, then turned on her heel and walked away swiftly from Kara. Kara could only watch Lena walk away from her, down the alley and possibly out of her life altogether, the strongest woman on the planet, helpless.

Then, something happened.

Hope.

Lena turned around about fifty yards away. “I know I don’t have to raise my voice for you to hear me,” Lena began in her regular voice, still angry. “I don’t know which hurts more. The fact that you lied to me or the fact that you didn’t trust me with the truth.”

Kara took a quick peek up at the alleyway to make sure there weren’t any security cameras. Then she reached up to take her glasses off her face and stuff them in her back pocket. She took a tentative step in Lena’s direction, then another. She lifted her hand up to her ponytail and yanked the elastic out as she walked forward, a little faster now, to give the impression that she had walked out of the holder, her blonde hair cascading around her shoulders and down her back. Then she started to jog towards Lena, eyes locked onto hers the whole time. When Lena didn’t move a muscle, she started to run harder, faster towards her.

When she was about halfway to Lena, she moved at Super speed to change into her Supergirl costume. To Lena’s naked eye, it looked like Kara was there one second and then she suddenly disappeared, only to reappear as Supergirl a few yards away from where she last saw her, still running at her.

Blue eyes reclaimed green. Kara stopped just short when she got to Lena. To Lena’s credit, she only flinched slightly. Then Kara stepped into Lena’s personal space. “It’s still me,” she said breathlessly, and grabbed Lena’s cheeks and crushed her lips to hers.

Now normally, Kara was all about consent. But this might very well be the last time she will get to kiss Lena, so Kara wanted to make sure she poured all her passion and emotions and feelings for her into this one kiss. And Lena was kissing her back, her hands coming up to wrap around her forearms.

And just as abruptly, Kara pulled back, breaking the kiss, and removing her hands. Lena was so surprised, she stumbled forward, one hand coming up to steady herself, resting on Kara’s chest, fingers splayed on top of the insignia of the House of El that most people took for the letter “S.” Lena stayed with her head down, looking at her hand on top of Kara’s uniform.

Kara waited patiently for Lena to speak. Heck, she had spent 24 years in the phantom zone, she knew a thing of two about being patient.

“When you said a fire killed your parents what you really meant was your whole planet exploded, killing everyone that you ever knew and loved.” It really wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” said Kara simply.

“And when you said Alex had to show you how to do chores and show you the ropes at school, you really meant she had to show you how to be human and how to blend in.”

Yes.” Again, simply.

“And even though you are not of this planet,” here Lena cut her eyes up at Kara. “You chose to be earth’s protector.”

“Yes.”

Green eyes stared into blue. If time were to stop, thought Kara, and I had to live in this moment forever, well, there were worse ways to spend eternity.

“Can we go somewhere and talk,” said Lena in a gentle voice.

“Yes!” The relief was so palpable that Kara’s knees buckled slightly and she had to take a step back, Lena’s hand dropping from her chest.  

“On one condition,” said Lena, somewhat sternly.

Kara felt like she had suddenly flown into a brick wall. No, said Kara’s head. No conditions. Conditions were bad. Nothing good ever came out of agreeing to conditions.

“Anything,” said her heart though her oh, so traitorous mouth. Kara did a mental eye-roll at herself and felt like saying D’oh out loud.

“Can we fly there?” asked Lena shyly. “The first time I flew in your arms, I was a little distracted and very terrified, what with the attempt on my life.” Lena smiled that genuine smile that was only for her.

“Of course,” came the answer easily.

---

Kara held her arms out in front of her. “Uh, let me just, uh, scoop you up, bridal style,” said Kara, bending down and picking up Lena by putting her straight arms behind her knees and shoulder blades. She picked Lena up and was carrying her level like a board and so she lowered her legs so her head was now even with hers. Better. Lena’s arms automatically went around Kara’s neck.

“If I go to high or too fast, or you are bothered by anything at all, just say ‘down’ and I will instantly return to the ground,” she told Lena in a concerned voice.

“I will be fine, I’m with you.” Lena said, her anger shelved for now, replaced with an expectation of something else, she couldn’t quite name. Maybe it was the fact she had so many questions for Kara about her secret identity.

Kara took off gently from the ground, her eyes fixed on Lena’s face for any signs of distress. Once they were in the air and it looked like Lena was enjoying the ride, Kara finally concentrated on where she was going. She knew a nice quiet spot to take her to talk, but then an idea hit her.

She flew to the National City Nature Preserve instead. She spotted the river snaking through the canyons. “I think you’ll like this,” said Kara as she dove down to follow the water along the red and brown cliffs. Lena felt the coolness of the water as they flew, the verdant scenery rushing past them to create a mystical feeling. “I see so many wondrous sites when I am flying, but it gets lonely because I don’t have anyone flying next to me.” Kara looked at Lena and smiled.

Next, Kara flew towards the downtown area and headed to the highest buildings, even circling CatCo Worldwide Media, the place where she will be working in a few short weeks. The sun had set behind the mountains, but as Kara flew higher, they were still bathed in the last embers of the glowing sunlight. Lena looked down to see the rest of the city in the purple hues of dusk, and back up to see the tops of the building bathed in a warm light.

“I know it’s kinda silly, but when the sun sets, I like to fly up here and catch the last of the dying rays. It feels like I am the only one who gets to enjoy the sunlight a few moments longer,” said Kara.

“Kara, it’s absolutely breathtaking,” answered Lena, with genuine wonder in her voice.

“All this beauty I see from my unique vantage point, and I had no one to share it with, until now.” This time, Kara couldn’t look at Lena. There was so much she wanted to say to Lena about why she hid her alter ego from her. She knew Lena was still mad at her, for good reason. Now was her chance to set the record straight. And even though she had faced bad guys with guns, mud whompers from planet Ramgoon and repsicallions with razor sharp talons from planet Lagos, she had never been more nervous to finally come clean to Lena.

She knew exactly where to take Lena for their talk.

---

Lena looked behind her, away from the sun to see the inky sky creep up behind them, the moon a crescent hung low in the sky, a star or two out. Her emotions were running a gamut just as the colors in the sky tonight, she thought. She noticed they were now moving away from the downtown area towards more residential buildings. She felt them decelerate and lower, until Kara landed gently on a roof top three stories up. She placed Lena’s feet on the roof and Lena let go of Kara’s neck, instantly missing the warmth. Kara started walking towards a coffee table and a beat-up looking couch covered by an awning to keep the elements off of it.

“Kara, where are we? And why is there a couch?”

“We are up on the roof of my apartment building.” The news shocked Lena, she hadn’t realized it from the air.

“I liked to spend time up here when I first moved, so I brought up the couch and coffee table. The door to the roof is kept locked, so the only way up is to fly, so that’s why I couldn’t show it to you,” Kara added hastily. “That reminds me, I promised we would talk, but is it okay if I go to my apartment and change first?”

“Of course,” answered Lena.

“Okay, don’t go anywhere,” said Kara. ”I’ll be right back.”

“Kara, I am trapped on your roof with a locked door and no other way down. Where would I go?” she asked in a slightly exasperated tone.

“I don’t know, but knowing you, you would probably invent a jet pack in the few seconds I am gone,” she smiled at Lena.

Lena smiled back and moved towards the couch. She looked back at Kara and one second she was there and then she wasn’t. It was probably about 60 seconds later when a blur of color showed up in front of her and then Kara, in jeans and a gray, long sleeve shirt appeared before her. Kara would have reappeared sooner, but she had radioed to Alex that Lena was with her and okay and to tell Maggie not to worry.

Lena sat on the couch, still amazed at how Kara could use her super speed to disappear and reappear. It was then she noticed Kara had some things in her arms. Kara took a blanket from off her arm and draped it on Lena’s lap. “In case you get a little chilly in the night air,” said Kara.

Next she handed a mug to Lena as she sat next to her, taking out a bottle of water that was tucked under her arm. She placed the water bottle on the table and removed the spoon resting in the mug. Then Kara took a packet of hot chocolate mix out of the mug and opened it, dumping the brown powder into the mug. She added just the right amount of water and stirred the concoction, tapping the spoon against the side of the mug twice for good measure, before placing it on the table.

She then wrapped her hands around Lena’s that were still holding the mug. “Okay, don’t move,” she ordered. Kara used her laser vision to heat the water. When she turned off the red beams shooting out of her eyes, she noticed the water was boiling, large bubbles popping into steam. “Oops, too hot,” she laughed nervously. She blew on it with her frost breath and Lena could feel the temperature around her drop. “Whoops, now it’s too cold.”

Kara gave what Lena would describe as one more ‘jot’ of her laser vision to the brown liquid. “Okay, that should do it.”

Lena had a quip about Goldilocks and ‘just right’ but the joke remained unsaid. Instead, she thought about what she had just witnessed. Now, Lena didn’t really want any hot chocolate. It wasn’t her drink of choice. But when your Superhero girlfriend uses her heat vison and freezing breath to make it just the right temperature, you shut up and drink it.

Kara had removed her hands and Lena took a sip. The ‘just right’ liquid went down smoothly and instantly warmed her up from the inside out. It was a drink she didn’t know she needed. “Um, this is delicious,” she said. Then she realized that although this might not be her beverage of choice, she was willing to bet it probably was Kara’s. “Would you like a sip?” she offered. Kara took the mug, touching Lena’s hands during the exchange of the mug in what could only be described as an intimate gesture.

She took a large sip and made an appreciative groan, before handing back the mug. Lena was glad her instincts had been correct.

“Lena, I want to tell you the truth. But in order to do that, I need to tell you everything. I would like to tell my story all the way through without interruptions. And when I am done, you can ask as many questions as you want and I promise I will answer them all, honestly, I swear, but I have to say all this first. Is that okay?’ she asked with trepidation, her voice cracking.

“Yes, I can agree to that,” said Lena, sitting back on the couch.

---

"You were right when you said my home planet blew up and all that I had known and loved had died. During the confusion of the last few minutes as my planet crumbled, my mother led me to a single spaceship and made me get in. She told me it would follow the one that had my baby cousin, Kal-el, or as you know how as…”

“Superman,” murmured Lena feeling like she had been staring at a hard equation only to realize 2 plus 2 did indeed equal 4. “But you said your baby cousin?”

“Yes, he was younger than me, a baby when his spaceship left Krypton. My ship took off as the planet imploded and the shock waves knocked my spaceship into the phantom zone for 24 years. Finally, my ship escaped and made its way to earth. Imagine my surprise to find Kal-el all grown up and me still 13 earth years old. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for me in his grown up life, so to make a long story short, he asked the Danvers family to take me in. He also told me I couldn’t tell anyone else that I was an alien from another planet, that is wasn’t safe for me for people to know.”

Kara looked out over the roof as she told this story, the pain of those times still evident on her face. “The Danvers were always kind, but Alex was resentful when I first arrived, and I don’t blame her. She was made to babysit me. Here I was this young thing, full of grief over losing her parents that spoke half English, half Kryptonese. The Danvers lived out in the country and had a small farm, with a garden and some chickens and goats. I was supposed to help Alex with chores but I kept messing up and our Mom would blame Alex for either not teaching me correctly or not watching me closely. I knew it was unfair to Alex and it made me feel even more awful when Alex got in trouble for my mistakes.”

Lena looked out over the rooftop as well and realized that it was now dark, the street light the only illumination on Kara’s face.

“One night, early in my stay with the Danvers, I awoke to find Alex shaking me…

---

“Kara, Kara wake up. You’re having a bad dream,” Alex shook her newly adopted sister, who was crying out and fitfully tossing and turning in her sleep.

  “Wha.. what.. Alex, what are you doing in my bedroom?” asked a visibly shaken Kara.

  “You were crying out in your sleep again, and this time you didn’t stop, so I came in here to wake you,” said Alex, kneeling by Kara’s bed. “That must have been some nightmare, huh?” she said to try and lighten the mood.

  “Yeah... wait, what do you mean, again?” Asked a perplexed Kara, still learning English.

  “Well,” said Alex, a little sheepishly, “Most nights I hear you cry out briefly, and sometimes you kick the wall, but you always settle back down.” Alex didn’t mention the first time Kara had kicked the wall, it had sounded like a cannon.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kara in a small voice. Oh geez, thought Alex, that was the last thing she wanted to do, to make Kara feel guilty for waking her.

  “Hey, no, it’s okay,” soothed Alex. After a beat she asked, “What were you dreaming about?”

  “It’s always the same thing every time. Watching my mother die as my planet explodes…” she trailed off sadly.

  Alex’s heart went out to the younger girl. Sure, she kept messing up the chores and her Mom made her miss spending time with her own friends to watch over her, and she found her so annoying what with all her questions, but no one deserved to relive that kind of nightmare. She made an executive decision.

“Okay, shove over,” she told Kara, getting up off of her knees and pulling back the covers to Kara’s bed.

  “What, why? Alex, what are you doing?”

  “You keep waking me up, so why don’t I sleep in your bed with you tonight and if you start to have a nightmare, I can just roll over and shake you and not have to get out of bed.” Alex was fully under the covers now.

  “Thanks,” came a small voice. Kara felt a lump in her throat. She couldn’t begin to explain the comfort she took in the gesture. Alex rolled over away from Kara and settled into the twin bed.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Kara was quiet for approximately two minutes.

  “Alex?” came the questioning voice. Alex sighed and rolled over to face Kara, who turned to face her as well, both sharing the single pillow.

  “You know how you tell me how to do all the chores for around the farm and I keep messing up?” asked Kara in a worried voice.

  “Yeah,” answered Alex in what she hoped was a kind voice.

  “It’s just…. I don’t understand most of the words you use. You tell me ‘take that bucket, and fill it with feed, and sprinkle it on the ground for the chickens.’ I don’t know what a bucket is, I don’t know what feed is and I don’t know what a chicken is.”

  “You don’t know what a chicken is?” asked Alex, laughing a little.

"Well, NOW I know what a chicken is.” Kara giggled, embolden by Alex sharing the laugh. “They are the things with two legs and feathers, which are different from the goats, who have four legs and little horns, and butt me in the stomach with their heads when I am late with their food. But I didn’t before, and when you tell me stuff, I don’t understand most of the words you use, and you go so fast and when I ask questions you get kinda mad and then I get confused and that is why I keep messing things up. If you can go a little slower and I can ask you my questions I think I would understand quicker, I promise. I don’t want to keep getting you in trouble or anything,” she finished.

  Alex was taken aback. She knew Kara was still learning English, but she didn’t realize she needed ordinary things explained to her on such a basic level and that she didn’t welcome Kara's questions.

  “Sure, I can do that. I’m sorry I haven’t been the most patient at explaining things. Let’s start tomorrow during morning chores, okay? And you can ask me any questions you want.” Alex smiled. Kara smiled a relived smile back. “But on one condition,” said Alex.

  “What’s a condition?” asked Kara.

  “It means I will do something for you only if you do something for me. I promise to be more patient teaching you about the chores and you will promise to teach me to speak Kryptonese.”

  Kara giggled again. “You want to learn Kryptonese? Why?”

  “So we can have a secret language. We can talk and even Mom and Dad can’t understand us!” said Alex, eyes shining.

  Kara was touched. “Okay, Alex. Bem Zil. That means good night in Kryptpnese,” she said.

  “Bem Zil,” said Alex, getting her first lesson in Kryptpnese.

---

Kara stopped her story and stared out over the roof top, lost in her memoires. With a brief glance at Lena, she continued, “From that day forward, Alex and I became fast friends. She was indeed more patient with me and I got better at understanding English. Plus, she got really good at speaking Kryptpnese and we could have full conversations, sometimes teasing my parents, so it was nice that my native language didn’t disappear.”

“However, one night, when I was about 14 earth years old, we were washing the dishes after a big meal, our Mother and Alex washing and I was drying them. I must have pressed too hard while drying and the plate broke off in my hand, a large part crashing to the floor and splintering in a million pieces. I was mortified. Both Mom and Alex said it was alright, but their kindness only seemed to make it worse. I fled the kitchen. I heard our Mom telling Alex to let me go.” Kara shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the introspection.

“I was crying and upset and ran out behind the barn and before I realized what was happening, I took off and was flying in the air. And it felt wonderful. And a little voice in the back of my head said I shouldn’t show my powers, that it was unsafe, dangerous even. But flying just felt so right, it didn’t feel dangerous or unsafe. For the first time since coming to earth, I felt like myself. Had everyone been lying to me about hiding my powers, I thought?” she looked Lena’s way again.

“I went flying every night that week, after everyone in the house had gone to sleep. On the seventh day, Alex was waiting for me behind the barn when I landed. She jumped out and yelled ‘busted!’ I begged her not to tell Mom and Dad and she said ‘tell them, I want a ride.’” Here Lena chuckled a little.

“So I took her flying, carrying her much like I carried you tonight and it was so, so wonderful to take Alex flying and share that experience with her. For the next few weeks, we would go flying, mostly on the weekends. Alex was on the school’s volleyball team and they held practices and games that summer and she got this idea for this big tournament in which her team would be playing. We bought some bed sheets at the thrift store and sewed four of them together and then painted ‘This is Bear Country’ on them, our high school mascot being a bear. Then I flew her to the roof of the gymnasium the night before the competition and we hung the bed sheets so it was right above the entrance.”

“The next morning,” Kara continued, “As the team piled into the school bus, Alex kept telling her teammates they were going to win because the gym was “Bear Country.’ She kept repeating it, she told me later, so much so that her teammates got a little sick of it. And then when the bus pulled up to the entrance, they all saw the bedsheet Alex and I had hung. All heads swiveled to her and she just smiled as they exited the bus. Unfortunately, her coach had heard her repeatedly proclaim that this was Bear Country too and asked her if she had anything to do with the prank. Alex dutiful pointed out that four out of the twenty teams in the tournament were nicknamed The Bears. The coach wasn’t convinced, but she couldn’t prove anything. Alex was named team captain that fall.” Kara chuckled at that memory.

“One night I told Alex there was going to be a super full moon and that it would be cool to go flying in the bright moon light,” Kara continued. “We took off as usual and it was indeed magical. The earth below bathed in a slivery light. What we didn’t realize was that if we could see the earth lit up by moon light, others could see us in the sky. Many people called the police department to report an UFO, we found out later. Then I saw a flash of orange from below and heard a loud noise as something felt like it pricked me in the back. Alex told me to fly home as fast as I could and land. I could hear the panic in her voice, so I did what she said. We saw all the lights were on at our house and our Mom and Dad were on the front porch scanning the skies.”

---

“Oh gosh, Alex, there’s Mom and Dad, they must know we went flying,” said a nervous Kara, as she landed behind the barn and set Alex down.

  “Kara, it’s going to be fine. Let me do all the talking, okay?” Alex tried to give what she hoped was a reassuring smile. She knew how much trouble they were in but didn’t want Kara to know.. The two girls walked up to two very mad parents on the porch.

  “Inside, now,” said their Father. There they all stood around the kitchen island, Alex and Kara on one side, their Mom and Dad on the other.

  “Dad, it’s not what you think,” began Alex.

  “It’s all my fault. It was my idea to go flying. Alex didn’t even want to. Punish me, not Alex,” overrode a panicked Kara. Alex shot her a withering look. So much for letting me do all the talking, she thought.

  “Do you know how many people saw you flying, Kara,” said their Mother.

  “Miles Henderson thought he was under attack from aliens. He got out his shotgun and accidently shot himself in the foot,” said their father.

  “Old man Henderson shot his toes off?” Alex barked out a laugh.

  “Alex, this is no laughing matter,” their Mother tried to impress the gravity of the situation on them.

  Kara shifted at the counter top. She felt itchy all of a sudden. She heard five little ‘plinks’ hit the ground behind her. Unfortunately, so did everyone else.

  “What was that?” asked their Mother.

  “What was what?” answered Alex, a little too quickly.

  “Alex,” warned their Mother, as she crossed over to Kara and looked at the ground. “What is that?” she asked, pointing to five pieces of dark material, flattened, and laying on the floor behind Kara. Their father moved around to see as well.

  “Alex, what IS THAT?” their Mother asked again, her anger radiating in waves.

  “Buckshot,” said Alex in a very small voice.

  “BUCKSHOT?” said their Mother in a very big voice. She grabbed Kara’s shoulders and turned them, seeing the holes in back of her t-shirt where the buckshot had entered and then flattened against her skin. Then she grabbed Alex’s shoulders and inspected her front to back.

  “What’s buckshot?” asked Kara. She was promptly ignored.

  “Where did this happen, Alex?” asked her mother heatedly.

  “When we were flying over old man Henderson’s farm,” answered Alex.” He must have shot at Kara before he shot himself.”

  “Alex, for Pete’s sake,” said their mother, the lack of a swear word not indicative of how angry she was.

  “Mom, it’s okay, Kara has super skin, the bullets can’t penetrate and hurt her,” she said to her Mother.

  “But you don’t, Alex.”

  Kara wasn’t sure what was going on, but with the way her Mother said that, Kara knew she had placed Alex in danger tonight. And she felt physically sick.

  After their Dad coaxed their mother upstairs so he could talk to the two girls alone, the three of them sat at the kitchen table. Their Father explained he worked for the super-secret DEO that tracked and helped aliens. When people had started to call the police about a UFO, they DEO had been listening in and funneled the calls to him and then checked to see if was the Kryptonian girl they had planted with him to watch over. A quick check of her bed told him she was indeed missing.

"Kara, your cousin and I have been telling you that it is dangerous to show the world your superpowers. Tonight, people saw you and panicked. One man shot himself in the foot, even.”

  “That’s because he’s an idiot,” mumbled Alex.

  Their Father shot Alex an exasperated look, “And he shot at you and Alex, too,” he said gently. The kitchen remained silent at that revelation, the ticking of the clock counting out the dread Kara was feeling.

  Their dad tried another tack. “Kara, what if people knew about your super strength and asked you to rip open the vault down at the Midvale bank so they could easily steal the money inside it?” he asked.

  “Then I wouldn’t do it, because stealing is wrong,” she answered proudly with her chin up.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” said their Father. “Now, what if the bank robbers head a gun to Alex’s head because they knew she was your sister and said they would kill her if you didn’t help them rob the bank?”

  Kara gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

  “Or threatened to harm your Mother or me if you didn’t do what they asked?”

  “Unfair, Dad,” said Alex protectively.

  “It is a valid question, Alex!” He continued in a stern voice. “That is one of the dangers of people knowing you have super strength, Kara. All sorts of bad criminals will try to use you to do bad things, and possibly hold hostage or use your loved ones to get their way. Or a bad guy might be mad at you and try to shoot at you and instead hit someone standing next to you. You almost got Alex shot tonight!”

  “Dad!” Alex practically shouted. She knew he was scaring Kara.

  “He’s right,” said Kara in a stark voice. “I almost got you hurt tonight, Alex, and for what, so I could fly? I can’t believe I was so selfish. You’re right,” she said to her Dad. “I’ll never fly again, I promise, or show my super strength to anyone. It’s too dangerous. I don’t ever want anyone I love to get hurt. I promise to keep everything hidden.”

  “Oh Kara,” said Alex, aware of what she was giving up.

---

“So, you see my aversion to telling anyone my secret? It was drilled into my head from a young earth age that if I told anyone, I put them in danger, either from friendly fire of being around me or hurt to get me to do something illegal,” here Kara looked at Lena imploringly.

“And I kept my promise. I didn’t fly again until five years later. Do you remember when Supergirl first came out to the world?” She asked Lena.

“Um, I think the first sighting was when Supergirl saved a plane from going into the river,” answered Lena. It was weird to refer to Kara’s alter ego in the third person.

“I only flew to save that plane because Alex was on it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have occurred to me to use my super strength due to the conditioning I received as a young teen on earth,” she answered. “And it was the first time my powers didn’t feel like a burden, or something in which I needed to feel ashamed.”

She squared her shoulders at Lena. “Lena, I love you.” She held up her hand. “And I don’t need you to say it back, or expect you to say it back. It’s enough to get to tell you before it’s too late. I almost lost you today. And it has been drilled into me to keep those I love safe. And that is why I didn’t tell you. Not because I wanted to lie, I truly hated that part. And not because I didn’t trust you. I do trust you, 100%, implicitly. Please believe me. I was doing what I thought was best to protect you.” Kara felt emotionally spent. “I’m done now. Do you have any questions for me?” she asked in a small voice.

Chapter Text

Lena was quiet for a long time, staring at Kara thoughtfully, as if she was one of her science experiments that she could solve if she only gave it hours of thought. Finally, she spoke. “Where were you for those three days you went missing?” There was no need to further explain what days she meant.

Kara looked her in the eyes. “I was in the medical ward of the DEO suffering from Kryptonite poisoning.”

Lena looked away sharply, her breath hissing out involuntarily, “Oh God, now I feel like an idiot for being so mad at you,” she gestured in the air helplessly.

“No, you shouldn’t. You were acting like we were in a normal relationship. People in normal relationships don’t ghost each other for three days. I mean, who does that?” asked Kara in an imploring voice. “But that’s the thing, being with me, it won’t be normal. It will never be normal.”

Kara scooted closer to Lena on the couch and took her hands. “Lena if you stay with me, I will always put Supergirl first, before you, even before myself. I might have to leave you at a moment’s notice to take care of crime fighting or other Supergirl chores. I can’t expect you would be happy with that. And being with me has inherent dangers, as I said before. Plus, you would bear the burden of keeping my secret. That is unfair to ask of you.”

“Kara, I…” began Lena.

“Lena, no. I know you will agree to it now. But you don’t know what it is like to truly live like that. I know what it’s like to never be sure if my time is really my own, or if I will be called away on a mission. Could you take me leaving in the middle of the night for a dangerous mission, you waiting hours to hear from me? You will have to always be looking over your shoulder to make sure you are safe from my enemies. And then keeping my secret, you will have to lie to friends and family.” Kara squeezed Lena’s hands tighter.

“Lena, I want you in my life, however, I know it is a big ask, to ask you to be with me, so that’s why I want you to take two or three weeks to think about it. To really think about it, before you give me an answer. And even if the answer is that you can’t agree to the terms that my being Supergirl brings, that’s okay. I still want you in my life in some capacity, even if it is really good friends. Okay?”

Lena stayed silent, her mind a whir of calculations. Finally, she responded, “Okay, Kara. I will do as you ask and take some time to process this all.” She paused and then closed the distance between them on the beat up couch and kissed her passionately.

When she broke away from Kara, she said, “And for the record, I love you, too.” Lena had never felt freer in saying those three little words. Well, technically it had been more than three words, but still, she meant every one of them.

“Now, tell me more about Alex and the DEO,” she said as she pressed against Kara’s side and spread the blanket across both their bodies.

Later that night, Kara flew them down to her apartment and over grilled cheese sandwiches, they formulated their plan for tomorrow morning.

---

Winn sipped his morning coffee and stood beside Alex and J’onn, in the control tower of the DEO. “Alex, where do we stand with finding the shapeshifter?” asked J’onn. Winn looked up at the sky above Supergirl’s landing balcony.

“Uh, Alex,” he said, trying to get her attention.

“Well, Supergirl tracked it to the National Forest and we haven’t seen any heat signatures exit the woods that resemble the Shapeshifter, so we think he is weakened from missing his arm and hiding out there. There are a lot of caves and underground formations that is preventing our equipment from finding it,” she explained to the Director.

“Alex… uh, Alex,” Winn patted Alex’s arm, placing his coffee cup down.

“Okay, when Supergirl gets here, let’s have her make another sweep of the forest,” said J’onn.

“Alex…” this time he tugged on her sleeve.

“WHAT?!” shouted Alex, turning quickly on Winn. He shrank back.

“Uh, Supergirl is here… and she... brought a friend,” he said, pointing to the landing balcony. All three pairs of eyes swiveled to see Kara land and place Lena Luther down on the balcony. The two women then marched lockstep down the stairs, the very definition of a power couple. Confident and straight-backed, they both halted in front of the trio.

Lena was concentrating on keeping her face a mask of neutrality to hide her nerves. Her eyes took in Kara’s friend Winn, whom she had also met at game night, standing next to Alex. Geez, who else is in on this, she thought. Will she find grandmother knitting gun cozies in the closet?

“Director J’onn Jones, I would like you to meet Lena Luther. Lena, this is J’onn Jones. You know Alex and Winn,” she nodded at the other two. Winn raised his hand and wiggled his fingers in a nervous wave. Alex shot him a death glare and he quickly made his hand disappear. “She’s come to help,” said Kara.

“Supergirl, you can’t just bring civilians into a secured government facilities like this!” said an incredulous Alex.

“If by secured, do you mean secret?” challenged Lena to Alex.

“I mean secured, as in you don’t have the clearance to be here,” Alex challenged right back.

“Oh please,” said Lena, “LutherCorp has been keeping tabs on the DEO since your inception. We have whole rooms of files on your organization. I have probably seen your financials. Plus, we sell you most of your weapons. Why, that gun on your belt, Agent Danvers, was made by LutherCorp. And that agent over there,” she said, turning her head to an agent on guard duty, “Has last year’s AR-15 rifle. We made the new ones with a larger trigger guard and a better scope. You really should upgrade” The guard’s eyes grew wide at all the attention on him and he shifted slightly. “So your ‘secret’ organization’ is not as secret as you thought.”

Lena turned back toward J’onn. “Director Jones, I will sign whatever non-disclosure agreements you want me to sign and promise not to breathe a word about this facility. I think I can help you catch the Shapeshifter that was in on the plot to kill me and get him to give up the person who really wanted me dead.”

J’onn stared at Lena thoughtfully. “J’onn, you can’t possibly be considering this,” sputtered Alex when he didn’t dismiss her outright.

“Alex, we should listen to what she is offering,” said J’onn to his Deputy Director.

“Alex, she has good ideas. She wants to help. We could use it,” countered Kara, a little miffed Alex was being so difficult about this.

“Supergirl, this is totally unacceptable,” said Alex between clenched teeth.

“Alex…”

Lena listened to the two sister’s heated argument. Then she spoke over them, “Two words. Phase Inducer.” All parties stopped talking at once and turned to look at the dark-headed woman.

“A phase inducer, in a concentrated beam, pointed at the Shapeshifter will keep it from shifting long enough for you to capture it with your electrified net,” she explained.

The room stayed silent.

“That… could work,” Winn said in a small but impressed voice. Alex turned her head to look at him. If looks could kill, Winn would be dead three times over. He instantly regretted the words and tried to put some distance between him and the Deputy Director by taking a step backwards.

“Agent Winn, take Ms. Luther to the legal department to sign an NDA, and then take her to the lab and begin work immediately. Keep me abreast of your progress. We want this completed as soon as possible to go after the Shapeshifter,” said J’onn.

“J’onn!” Alex half-shouted in outrage.

“Alex, we are stumped on how to catch the Shapeshifter, and he is clever, as evidenced when you and Supergirl first met him. We need him to identify who placed the hit on Ms. Luther’s life and stop that person from making the illegal alien-killing weapons. We want to close this case as quickly as possible.” His words brokered no argument.

“Thank you, Director Jones. I’ll sign whatever you want, all the ideas generated here will belong to the DEO and I won’t try to use the technology for LutherCorp.” Said Lena.

“Thank you for helping us, Ms. Luther,” he said, shaking her hand and then turning to leave.

“Fine,” growled Alex, “But she is to only be cleared to be in the lab and other level-one access points, nothing higher,” this last part she directed at Winn, as if daring him to disagree.

“Got it,” said a chagrined Winn.

“And you, Agent Miller,” said Alex, gesturing at the agent who had the gun that Lena had pointed to and which they had all stared. “I want a guard on this civilian 24/7. You are to accompany her wherever she goes. Never let her out of your sight. When your shift is over, have the next guard on duty take your place. I’ll call up someone to take your place on the deck.”

“Yes, Agent Danvers,” said agent Miller.

“Really, Alex?” asked Kara,” Is that absolutely necessary?” she was mad at Alex’s blatant mistrust of Lena.

“It’s okay,” said Lena placing a hand on Kara’s arm, yet looking at Alex. “I welcome being protected inside the DEO.”

All three women stayed locked in this tableau until Winn cleared his throat and said, “Uh, if you’ll please follow me, Ms. Luther.”

As they walked away from the two sisters staring at each other, heavily engaged in a silent argument, Lena could be heard saying, “Please, call me Lena.”

---

After stopping in at HR to sign forms and get her a low-level clearance badge, Winn told Agent Miller to escort Lena to the main lab, as he was going to go to the auxiliary lab two levels below to get his laptop and tools. He thought it best not to take Lena though the DEO hallways in case they wondered into higher security levels and draw the ire of Deputy Director Danvers.

“Ma'am, do you mind if we stop at the infirmary so I can check on some of my squad who were injured in the line of duty?” asked agent Miller. “It’s a low security clearance, so we won’t be violating Agent Danvers’s orders,” he added quickly.

“Yes, of course, Agent Miller, whatever you need” said Lena. He led her to a door halfway down the hall and opened it and gestured her inside. It was a small medical ward with six hospital beds at one end and several desks with various amounts of medical and computer equipment on them at the other. Unsure of where to go, she stood near the door.

She watched as Agent Miller made his way to the hospital beds and then be greeted by five male agents sitting and standing in various degrees of spirits and bandages. Then he walked over to the female occupant in a hospital bed and spoke softly to her. Lena chuckled to herself. There’s always a girl involved, isn’t there, she thought. Although a quick glance at the young women with waxy skin and gray pallor told Lena she wasn’t doing too well at the moment.

“YOU!”

Lena turned at the one word, spoken harshly.

“How dare you show up here? What, did you come to gloat?” said a man in a white doctor’s coat, stethoscope around neck, walking towards Lena. “Do you take joy in other people’s suffering?” All the heads in the room swiveled to lock on her. She swallowed involuntarily.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about, Doctor…” she squinted at the embroidered name on the lab coat, “Peterson, is it?”

“Right, Lena Luther just happens to be here in this room, right now. The room of agents who just happen to be suffering from burns caused by a Slizsternine.”

Lena knew what that was, an alien that was a reptile-like creature that shot acid out of its mouth, acid, that if it comes in contact with human skin, causes severe burns. The worst part is the acid, once it gets under the skin can’t be washed or flushed away, and the acid continues to slowly burn and eat away at the skin. She imagined it was very painful. She know all this because LutherCorp had studied the creature and tried to artificially manufacture the acid as a weapon but could never get the chemical structure right. No wonder the women in the bed looked so terrible.

“Oh wow, have you tried putting hexabromocyclododecane on it to stop the spread of the burn?” she asked. This she knew was a cure from the weapons lab study.

“Have I tried hexa…” the doctor paused, looking apoplectic, a vein pulsing on his forehead. “You really are a piece of work, Ms. Luther, you know that?” he flung at her.

“Doctor, I really don’t know what’s going on.” Lena took a glance at the patients and agent Miller staring at her. “And it is obvious you recognize me, but I don’t know you so I am at a disadvantage. Can you explain it all to me from the beginning? Please?” she asked.

Maybe it was the word please. Maybe it was the earnestness in her voice about not knowing what was going on. Either way, the doctor’s expression softened somewhat.

“You don’t?” You mean you didn’t come over here after I contacted LutherCorp?”

“No, I am afraid not,” she said, holding his gaze.

“Hexabromocyclododecane or HBCD, as you pointed out, would stop the burn from spreading and give these agents much relief. It’s also in short supply. The only facility in the state to have it is LutherCorp,” he said. Lena felt a stone in the pit of her stomach. “And when I contacted them, they were not interested in helping me or these agents here,” he said looking back at the agents, who were now invested in this conversation.

“Who did you talk to at LutherCorp?” Lena asked, suddenly all business.

“A man named George... George Riss...” the Doctor tried to recall.

“George Risling?” asked Lena.

“Yes, that was it. It took me a long time just to get him on the phone yesterday. Then we had a very short conversation. He was not budging with the compound, no matter who was suffering, and that is a direct quote,” said the doctor, his tone now conciliatory.

Lena glanced around the desk. “Can I get an outside line on that phone?” she asked, pointing at the phone on his desk.

“Well, yes, yes you can, but…” trailed Dr. Peterson.

“Good.” Lena picked up the phone and punched in a number from memory. “Jess? Hi, it’s Lena. Good thanks,” she said, the entire room listening in on the one-sided conversation. “Listen, my cell phone just died, and I need to get a hold of George Risling in procurement. Can you patch me through? What do you mean he’s not in? He always takes Fridays off? Not everyone knows that. I didn’t know that,” she told Jess, her assistant at LutherCorp. “What do you mean Mrs. Olivetti runs the whole department anyway? Is that so? She paused for a second. “Okay, change of plans, can you please patch me through to Carl Malloy in supply? Thanks.” Lena held on to the cord of the phone and looked at the wall, trying to ignore the fact that the room was silent and she could hear herself breath.

“Sheila? Hi, it’s Lena. Good, Good thanks. How are you? I saw your Jenny made all state in soccer, congratulations!” Lena went silent, ostensibly listening to Sheila. “So I was hoping to talk to Carl. Is he in?” Lena paused. Then she spoke a little louder. “Sheila, I hear him in the background telling you not to tell me he’s in the office! Sheila, put me on speaker. Put me on speaker, right now” she demanded a little louder. “Carl Mallory, if you do not answer my call, I will tell your wife that when you say you have to work late that you are really playing poker with me and the guys and that you are currently in debt to me for $1,238… Hi Carl,” her voice practically purring to him after raising it to get him on the phone.

“Carl, I am in a burn ward and the people here need HBCD to stop a very nasty acid burn from a Slizsternine. Yes. Oh, so you know Dr. Peterson from the FBI?” here she looked up at the Doctor in question. Kara always maintained Alex worked for the FBI. Dr. Peterson must have told Carl he worked for the FBI, too, instead of the secretive DEO. “Yes, I’m with him right now. Never mind that. So he called you yesterday? Why was he turned down? George Risling said that? I think I will want a word with him. What? Yes, I know he takes Fridays off. Apparently everyone knows. Okay, look Carl, I want you to get a package ready with 20 units of HBCD from the chem lab and get it to a shipping bay.” Here she put her hand over the receiver and said to Dr. Peterson, “Can you have an agent go to LutherCorp to pick up the package?”

“Yes, I can have agent Withers come get it. Just tell me where.”

Lena uncovered the receiver and spoke again. “Okay, a FBI agent by the name of Withers will come pick it up. What? Don’t you worry about what George Risling will say, you leave him to me. You just get the package ready. Under who’s authority? Well, mine. After all, my last name is on the company letterhead. I will make sure the release order is sent to the chem lab.” She hated to pull rank, she really did, but she was determined to get this chemical for the agents who were clearly suffering and who were now hanging on her everyone word.

“In fact Carl, I want you to get the package and personally take it to the shipping bay and wait for the agent and give it to him so nothing goes wrong. Ah, don’t give me that, you’re a big boy. I’ll tell you what, you do this favor for me and I will forgive your gambling debt to me… I thought that might motivate you. What’s the address of the shipping bay? 4523 South 13^th St? Got it,” she glanced at the Doctor, who was writing the address down in a notebook he had produced from his pocket. “Okay, the agent should be there in…” here she looked at the Doctor. He mouthed 30 minutes. “Thirty minutes,” Lena repeated. “Okay, thanks Carl. What? Sure, poker this Wednesday. See you then.” She hung up the phone.

“Ms Luther, I want to apologize…”

“Hold that thought,” she said, holding up one finger in the air. She then dialed the phone again and turned and leaned back against the desk. “Jess? It’s me again. Can you please patch me through to George Risling’s office? Yes, I know he’s not there,” she said, exasperated. “I actually want to talk to Mrs. Olivetti. Thanks.”

After a brief pause, she spoke again. “Mrs. Olivetti. Hello, it’s Lena Luther.” The room noticed that she talked a little slower and more formally than she did in her previous conversation. “How are you? Yes, it’s been too long, hasn’t it? Listen, I was hoping to talk to George. Oh, he’s not in? Oh dear. Oh, no,” she said in her most disappointed voice. “Well, unfortunately, everything is not alright, Mrs. Olivetti. I’m in a burn ward and these poor boys and girls are suffering from terrible burns. The doctor here says they would be helped greatly if he could get his hands on some Hexabromocyclododecane but no one seems to have any. I was hoping George could spare some from our chem lab.” Lena was willing to bet that George had not confided to Mrs. Olivetti about the FBI needing the chemical compound.

“I’m just so upset to see the suffering in the hospital. It’s awful.” Lena paused, listening. “Oh no, I’m sorry, Mrs. Olivetti, I hope I am not upsetting you. I remember the nights you spent in the hospital at your Susie’s bedside when she was going through her bacterial infection.” Lena paused. She felt a little guilty playing the sick daughter card, but it seemed to work.

“Well, I’m just going to have to make an executive decision to release the compound. Mrs. Olivetti, can you please prepare the paperwork and I will come down to the office and sign the documents. It might take me close to two hours to get back that way. What? You can get them ready and just sign George’s name?” she asked, as if that thought had never occurred to her. She laughed into the phone,” No, of course I won’t tell a soul you do that sort of thing all the time.” She made a mental note that when she became CEO to revisit this and George Risling’s work ethic. But right now she had to get this over the finish line.

“That would be wonderful, and save me a trip. If you can get the paperwork to the lab, Carl Malloy has volunteered to pick it up and get it to the shipping bay to deliver it to a hospital representative. Yes, he’s such a good man.” Lena mentally rolled her eyes. “No, no reason to bother George with this on his day off. Just leave a nice note on his desk so he gets it first thing Monday morning, and make sure he sees my name,” said Lena. She got the feeling Mrs. Olivetti knew that she knew that George often took ‘days off’ when he shouldn’t. 

“Okay, thank you so much for your help today, Mrs. Olivetti.” Lena got an idea, borne out of the fact she felt guilty about playing on Mrs. Olivetti’s emotions by mentioning her daughter. “Once you get the papers delivered, you should take the rest of the day off, Mrs. Olivetti. No, I’m serious. If George has the day off, and I am willing to bet you are all caught up on your work, you should take it off too. Actually, you could also do me a favor. I was given five free trips to the La Belle Vous Salon and Wellness Spa. I know, so fancy! I went once and I wasn’t thrilled with the customer service. I would love if you went and reported back to me about the service. Maybe they were just having an off day. No, really, it would be my pleasure to give you one of my coupons. It allows you access to all the services. Really, it’s no inconvenience to me. You will? Oh good. Great, you know where it is? That’s the one. I’ll phone ahead so it will be all arranged, you won’t need to pay a penny. Enjoy yourself and let me know how everything works out. My pleasure Mrs. Olivetti. Take care now.” Lena hung up the phone.

Dr. Peterson looked at her expectantly, not saying a word. Lena held up her finger again. She dialed the phone for a third time. “Jess? Me again. Listen, I’ve had such an exhausting day, I think I will book some time at the La Belle Vous Salon. Can you please transfer me there? Thanks. Have a great weekend.”

Lena waited as the phone call was transferred and her call was answered. “Hi, this is Lena Luther. I need to talk to the owner. Yes, she will take me call. Tell An Lee it’s Lena Luther. Believe me, she will thank you when you transfer the call. Thank you, I will wait.” She looked up at the ceiling. Again, she hated using her name to get what she wanted, but sometimes it just saved a lot of hassle.

“An Lee, Lena Luther. Yes, it’s been too long. Yes, I need an appointment this afternoon, but it’s not for me. It’s for a coworker who has a horrible boss. Yes, aren’t they all? Her name is Shirley Olivetti and she is headed your way now. I told her I had a free coupon, so go ahead and give her the full works, massage, hair, mani, pedi, anything she wants, and then charge my account. Be sure to tip the girls 20% and give yourself a nice fee, too. Now, I did tell her to check out your customer service, so I am sure you and your staff will do an outstanding job, as always. Thanks. Yes, I will have to book myself an appointment soon, too. Thanks again. Let me know if there is any problems. Great. Take care.” Lena hung up the phone and folder her arms. Ah, she loved the art of making a deal. She knew money talked when it came to services, and she was certain they would give Mrs. Olivetti a relaxing time, and she deserved it, working for a man like George who took all the credit when she did all the work.

She was startled out of her revelry by the sound of clapping. The agents were applauding her. One of them even whistled. The female agent in the bed even joined in on the applause. Lena had a look of confusion on her face. Dr. Peterson held out his arms to the agents. “Okay, that’s enough, settle down,” he said, but he had a smile in his voice. He turned to Lena.

“Ms. Luther, I owe you and apology. One, I assumed you knew about the conversations I was having with LutherCorp, and two, then I accused you of being heartless and uncaring. I was wrong on both accounts. I hope you will forgive me,” he said humbly.

“First appearances can be deceiving. Thank you for letting me help,” she said simply, glossing over the fact he had judged her because of her last name. “And please, call me Lena,” she said, extending her right hand.

“John,” he said, shaking her hand. “And, uh, I’m sorry you had to give up your gambling winnings to help us.” Now he really was smiling.

“Oh, that’s okay. Carl is such a terrible poker player. I know all of his tells. I am confident I can get that debt back up in no time,” she smiled back at the doctor.

“I have no doubt,” said Dr. Peterson.

“Now, what about their recovery?” Lena asked. “Have you told them what they are in for?” The smiling faces of the agents quickly fell, and they turned towards the doctor.

“Well, no, not really. I have been so focused on getting the HBCD and stopping the burns from spreading that we haven’t really discussed the recovery aspect of the burns yet.”

Lena turned more to the agents then to the doctor. “Losing skin to burns like you have suffered is a very long and painful recovery process. Typically your body can’t grow the skin back so you have to endure very painful skin grafts.” Dr. Peterson cleared his throat. It was obvious he didn’t want to have this conversation right now, and laid out so bluntly.

“But what if there was another way?” she said to the doctor. “May I?” she gestured to the computer terminal. “Can I get outside access?”

“What, oh yes, sure,” said Dr. Peterson, moving back so Lena could sit in the chair in front of the computer.

“Doctor, I want to introduce you to something I invented called ‘Second Skin.’” she said, pulling up the summary page from the patent department. “It is a process where nanobots are injected with the patient’s skin DNA and they work to build the skin back where it is missing and then die off when there is no more skin to repair.” She rolled her chair back so he could get a look at the computer screen.

“It’s painless and repairs the skin in days if not hours depending on the severity of the missing skin, and recovery time is nearly zero, patients can resume their normal life within days.”

“You invented this?” he said slowly, scrolling through the documents and stopping on the diagrams of how the skin building worked. “This... this is incredible. The agents will be back on their feet in no time. And more importantly, they won’t have to go through pain in the years to come. Ms. Luther, how…”

The agents began smiling at each other again. Lena wasn’t sure what the doctor was asking when he said ‘how,’ but she took charge anyway. “This is newly patented, and we have only had 18 test cases so far, all perfect, no complications. The clinical trials are being held at National City Hospital under Dr. Alice Thurber. I would love to enroll your agents, Dr. Peterson. As FBI agents, of course,” she added quickly.

“Dr. Thurber is very well respected in the study of the Integumentary System. It would be advantageous to get the agents enrolled in the study,” he finished.

“Wait,” she said, and walked closer to the agents. “This technology is very experimental. That’s why we are having clinical trials. I don’t know how the DEO works, if they can force you to get medical procedures without your consent, so I want to ask you first. How do you feel about being placed in the study with new and revolutionary technology? Little robots will be let loose in your system to build your skin. How do you feel about that?”

The agents were silent, staring back at her. “I can give you access to the patent and the schematics if you want to study them first so you can make an informed decision.”

One of the agents stepped forward. “Agent Truvisky,” he introduced himself. “Now, I’m not so good with the science, so me looking at the schematics probably ain’t such a good thing, but Ma’am, if you were suffering from burns like ours, would you do the treatment?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said agent Truvisky. He raised his hand. The four other agents standing around him did too, even though no one had asked them to vote by hand. They all glanced over to the female agent in the bed. A weakly-raised hand joined her fellow mates.

“It seems it unanimous, then,” said a delighted Lena, turning back to the doctor. “Let me give you Dr. Thurber’s email address and you can contact her to work out the details, tell her that I recommended your team for the study. She will be happy to get six more subjects. Not that she is happy you are injured,” she said as she turned back to the agents, “Just that it is hard to come by test subjects that have been so badly burned. Now, I want to tell you as a patient in the trial, you will have to document your process, and then submit weekly reports for three months after the procedure, then going to monthly reports for a full year.” She stopped to gage their reaction, but there were no objections.

“And one more thing. I want you to be honest about your pain level. No heroics and sucking it up. These treatments will be utilized by civilians who might not have the same level of pain tolerance you might have, so you have to tell the doctors if any little thing feels strange or hurts, okay?” She looked every agent in the eye in turn. They all nodded solemnly. “Good. Doctor, let me write down Dr. Thurber’s email address.”

“Ms. Luther, I can’t thank you enough. Not only were you able to get the compound to stop the burns on these agents, you have shown me your invention that will rebuild their skin, save them a lot of pain and revolutionize medicine. Thank you again.”

Lena shook his proffered hand. “My pleasure. Agent Miller, I believe Agent Winn is expecting us in the lab?” Agent Miller turned to the women in the bed and bid her a reluctant goodbye, (Lena caught the name Maria), then escorted Lena out of the hospital ward and to the main lab. They met Winn at the door, his arms laden with electronic gear. “Oh good,” he said to Lena. “Let’s get started!”

Chapter Text

When Kara came in, still dressed as Supergirl, with chicken tikka masala lettuce wraps at dinner time, Lena felt like the hours went by in a blink of an eye. Winn was a very creative and resourceful engineer and Lena had enjoyed working with him. She usually worked on her inventions alone, but having someone to challenge her and open up different pathways for problem solving has expanded her thought process. She didn’t think she could have completed this project without his help, something she never thought she would have admitted a few months ago, even to herself, before she met Kara. Lena was startled out of her thoughts when Winn mentioned something about a protein bar in his locker calling to him and left the two women alone to share a bite.

“Lena, I’m sorry about Alex’s behavior earlier today…” began Kara in an apologetic voice.

“Don’t be. I know she is just looking out for you. She’s not the first person I have had to win over to get them to have a change of heart about me, and probably won’t be the last.” She smiled encouragingly at Kara, but Kara’s heart sunk a little at that admission. Kara vowed inwardly to always give her the support Lena so richly deserved, even if others were not so forthcoming.

“How’s it coming with the phase inducer thingy?” She asks to change the subject.

“Good. I would go into greater detail but just the mere fact you called it a thingy makes me think you wouldn’t appreciate a full discourse on phase inducer variants,” she chuckled. 

“No, I would not,” said Kara with a smile.

When the chicken wraps were all finished (Kara ended up eating half of Lena’s) Kara radioed Winn that it was safe to come back to the lab. She even got in a quick smooching session with Lena before he showed back up so that he and Lena could work the night away.

---

Alex opened the door to the lab the next morning and surveyed the scene in front of her: Winn, head on his arm, asleep, drool coming out of his mouth, Lena sitting at a work bench, soldering wires. She shot Winn a look, even though he couldn’t see it. Granted, it was 7 AM on a Saturday and by the looks of it, Winn and Lena had been up all night.

“Ah, Alex, come in, I was just finishing the last touches,” said Lena to the agent in the doorway.

“Oh, so you are finished, then?”

“Yes, the trial tests went well and I can confidently say this is ready to go into the field.” She glanced over at Alex, moving around Winn’s sleeping form. “Winn was amazing. He just drifted off a few minutes ago,” she hurriedly said, feeling a pronounced need to defend him.

Alex ‘accidently’ kicked his chair, startling him awake. “Wha, what?” he looked around bewildered. “Oh, Agent Danvers, we were just, uh…” he trailed.

“Just putting the finishing touches on the phase inducer,” she teased. Winn looked around Alex to see Lena at the work bench.

“Yeah… yes, that’s exactly what we were doing,” he said, rubbing his eye sleepily. Lena put the soldering iron down and rubbed her wrist. She had been holding it steady for a few hours now.

“Lena, if you are at a good stopping point, I would like a word with you,” she said evenly. “I’m sure Agent Winn can finish what you started,” she glared at him affectionately.

“Yes, of course.” Lena followed Alex out of the lab into the hallway. Agent Miller came up to relieve the guard assigned to her that had drawn the night shift. “Ms. Luther, Dr. Peterson would like your presence in Medical Ward 12. You too, Agent Danvers,” he said to her as an afterthought. Alex glanced at Lena but she looked just as perplexed as she did. Why would Dr. Peterson want to talk to Lena, thought Alex?

---

“Ah, Lena, great, you’re here. Deputy Director Danvers, too,” Dr. Peterson said to Alex. Then he turned back to Lena. “I have some happy agents that really wanted to speak to you.” Now Alex really was confused. Why would her agents want to talk to Lena? When had Lena talked to her agents? She recognized this as the ward of agents who had been burned by the Slizsternine, but how was Lena involved with that?

Lena turned and walked towards the middle of the room and saw some bright-eyed and chipper agents smiling back at her. Even Maria in the hospital bed, who had looked so pale yesterday was sitting up and exuded a healthy glow. Agent Miller quickly took his place by Maria's bedside. “I see you all got the hexabromocyclododecane,” said Lena to the room. They laughed their affirmative.

“Ms. Luther was instrumental in getting us the HBCD from LutherCorp,” the doctor explained to Alex. She nodded slightly. Why was Lena involved in that, she wondered? Since Alex was actively informed of what was happening in the medical department at the DEO, she knew they were having trouble finding the compound. She didn’t think to ask LutherCorp.

“Ma’am?” said an agent, walking up to Lena. “I am Agent Kevin Kandinsky. I will be the first one to receive your nanobot treatment.” He stuck out his hand and Lena shook it.

“That’s because Kandinskly was in the back of the line when the damn serpent squirted us and didn’t get burned that much,” grumbled his buddy good naturedly, in that way soldiers have of teasing each other.

“Don’t you listen to them, Agent Kandinsky,” said Lena, shaking his hand and looking directly at the agent but really addressing the room. “It doesn’t matter if you were first or last in line. What matters is you ran to the Slizsternine and not away from it. You were doing your duty to protect National City and its people, and I thank you for your service. Now, if it was me facing that Slizsternine, I would have invented a jet pack on the spot and flown off in the other direction,” she said, using Kara’s joke from the rooftop. The agents laughed appreciatively.

Alex stared in disbelief. What was going on? Lena Luther cracking jokes? Being adored by her agents. Why, she had them eating out of her hand, she thought.

“And I mean it when I said don’t be a hero,” Lena continued speaking to the agent and the room. “Make sure you tell the doctors about anything that feels strange or uncomfortable, and report any pain right away, not that you should have any.”

“Yes, Agent Danvers, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Dr. Peterson. “Lena has given us the opportunity to be in a clinical trial for her invention that helps burn victims. She uses nanobots to rebuild skin in hours. Here, see for yourself.” He pulled up Lena’s patent documents on the computer. Alex stared at the first graph in disbelief. She sat down in the chair without taking her eyes off the screen. She hurriedly scrolled through the rest of the documentation.

“This is incredible,” she murmured to herself. Then she turned her head as Lena walked near her and caught her eye. “Lena, this is nothing short of amazing. This is so revolutionary, using the patient’s own DNA to rebuild their skin. It will cut recovery time down for severe burns from years to days. I… I’m speechless. “

“I’m glad you see the value in it. It’s still in clinical trials so it is a huge help to the study to have six burn patients with varying degrees of burns to use this on and show the range of capabilities the technology has. Dr. Peterson assured me he could disguise the agents as FBI,” she wasn’t sure if Alex still had to sign off on them being allowed into the trial.

“Dr. Peterson,” she turned to him, “Please keep me abreast on the all the patients’ progress. And please forward me a copy of Lena’s technology.”

“Of course Agent Danvers.”

“Lena, we really need to get back to the lab,” she motioned with her head. The rest of the agents stood in line to shake Lena’s hand and she said a few words to each, including stopping by Maria’s bedside. Agent Miller said a hasty goodbye to her as well as Alex and Lena left the room.

“Let’s stop in this conference room here. Agent Miller, can you wait outside?” After getting an affirmative, Lena and Alex walked into Conference Room B and stood by the table and chairs but both remained standing.

Alex looked at the floor and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know what just happened back there, but when you do things like that, it makes it really hard to give you ‘the talk’ and tell you how much harm I will do to you if you hurt her.”

“Alex, there is no reason to give me any ‘talk,’ or threaten me with bodily harm if I somehow mess things up with Kara,” countered Lena. “I see how close you are with her. You are her number one protector, and I want to become second in line behind you for that job.”

Alex tried to speak over Lena, but Lena charged ahead. “Do you know what Kara is thinking right now?” asked Lena. Her question caught Alex off guard, and she didn’t answer Lena back.

“Kara thinks I am taking weeks to decide if I still want to be with her. That I am debating if I really want her in my life, if it means also being with a Superhero. She thinks I am weighing all the inherent risks to myself, plus what it will be like to help her keep her secret. She thinks there might be a chance I will reject her, that I will say no. But I’m not,” she looked Alex squarely in the eyes.

“You’re not?” parroted Alex.

“I’m not. I’m not weighing over the options or calculating the risks or imaging what it would be like to have to share Kara with the world. Or trying to pull back from Kara. Because I already decided. She is the best thing in my life, the best thing that ever happened to me. She is the sun in my sky,” she said, echoing what she had told Kara that night at the Art and Wine Festival. “She makes me a better person, and I want to proudly stand by her side as we go through life together, and watch her do incredible things, as Kara and as Supergirl. And I will do everything in my power to make her happy. Make her feel safe and wanted and loved for who she truly is, as she so rightly deserves. And I know I don’t need it, but I would really like your blessing, Alex, because you mean so much to Kara and she values your opinion and loves you so much.” Alex felt a stinging in her eyes at that last sentence.

“And even if you don’t trust me right this second, please give me a chance to prove my love and loyalty for your sister, for Kara’s sake.” Even though Lena hated being vulnerable, hated, absolutely hated depending on another person’s opinion, she kept her eyes on Alex and didn’t look away. She had never craved someone’s affirmative of her as she did in this very moment.

Also at that very moment, Lena’s sun, dressed in the blue and red of her Supergirl outfit, slammed open the door to Conference Room B and skidded into the room as if she had been running. Both women jumped and turned to look at her. Kara held the doorknob in one hand, the other on the door frame, staring between the two of them. “Is, uh, everything all right in here?” she asked. When she had stopped by the lab a few minutes ago, Winn had said Alex had taken Lena to have a talk with her. Kara had spent the last five minutes frantically running through the corridors of the DEO trying to find them, not wanting Alex to accuse Lena or show her distrust to her again and possibly chase her away.

“Yes, everything is fine,” said Alex to Kara. Kara looked visibly relieved. “Lena and I were just having a chat. I believe Lena said the phase inducer is finished so we can begin to game plan how we are going to approach the Shapeshifter.” Alex looked to Lena for confirmation.

“Yes, it’s finished and ready,” she said back to Alex. Alex moved forward quickly and enveloped Lena in a fierce but quick hug. “Okay, I’ll head to the lab now,” she said as she looked away from a startled Lena, and walked to the door, squeezing Kara’s forearm briefly before she left.

Kara stared after her sister then looked back at Lena, her hand still on the doorknob. “Are you okay? When I heard Alex took you to talk to you, I was worried.”

“I’m fine,” answered Lena.

“What did she want? She didn’t threaten you, did she?” asked Kara, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh, she just wanted to have a sisterly chat, and no, she didn’t threaten me,” Lena said as she walked by and squeezed Kara’s arm much in the same way Alex had. “Much.” Lena completed her sentence as she excited the conference room. Kara stared after her and realized Lena was not going to give her anything more about the conversation. Then she shook her head and followed her out of Conference Room B.

---

After the briefing of the team, Kara and Alex left the DEO to attempt to catch the Shapeshifter. Lena was escorted back to the lab with Winn to help him cleanup, a strange feeling in her stomach. “How long do you think they will be gone?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray her nerves.

“You never know,” answered Winn. “It could take hours,” he said matter of factly.

“How do you deal with the ‘not knowing’” she asked, wanting to ask so much more. Wanting to be told everything would be all right and that Kara was not in any danger and would come back to her safe and sound. She realized with a jolt that she told Alex she was okay with this, with Kara being a Superhero and going on dangerous missions. The reality was starting to hit home, and she was feeling a little freaked out. Was she starting to doubt it all?

Winn looked at Lena kindly. “You just have to trust.”

Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, those few simple words went a long way to settle her frayed nerves. Trust. Not something she was good at. But she wanted to be, for Kara’s sake. And yes, she could admit, she was nervous about not knowing and not being in control, however Kara was worth it, this nervous feeling, if it meant in the end she came back to her. And when she was nervous, she did what she did best.

“You know that signal Kara gets in her ear from Alex’s radio?” Lena asked Winn. “What is the frequency?”

---

The team came back in the early afternoon. Kara and Alex, by unspoken agreement, both headed to the lab to find Lena and Winn. After Kara described how they had cornered the Shapeshifter and Alex had shot him with the phase inducer to stun him enough to be captured, there were smiles all around. Alex made it a point to praise Lena for the effectiveness of her weapon.

Things moved quickly after that. Maggie interrogated the Shapeshifter, happy to be reunited with his detached arm, and he was soon persuaded to talk. In exchange for leniency, he implicated the CEO as the one who had ordered the hit on Lena, as well as admit it was the CEO’s idea to try and poison Supergirl with Red Kryptonite.

Then Maggie and Lena had gone into planning mode, holed up in Conference Room B for the rest of the day, making many phone calls and debating what was best for Lena and her company and how to handle the CEO. Around 3 PM they had pulled Winn in and with his help, Lena was able to hack into LutherCorp undetected again to access Mark’s personal files and gather even more incriminating evidence, including where the money came from and where it had gone. Kara finally came in around 11 PM that night to drag an exhausted Lena back to her apartment to get some sleep, reminding her that tomorrow was Sunday and their graduation day and she, Kara and Winn had to be at the University early in the morning.

---

“Winn, I don’t see her, do you?” Kara was scanning up and down the hallway of the Business School, looking at a sea of faces bathed in identical black gradation caps and gowns, one hand on her own cap, the other holding a fragrant wreath of flowers, her black graduation gown billowing out behind her as she ran. She had tracked Lena’s heartbeat to this corridor, but it was pretty jam-packed with excited soon-to-be graduates.

“Kara, over here! I found her.” Winn shouted as ran up to a surprised Lena.

“Winn, what are you doing here? Isn’t the graduation ceremony about to start?” she said, taking in his red face and panting breath. Kara slid into him a second later, accidently body checking him and knocking his cap off.

“Sorry Winn,” she called behind her to his bent form retrieving the hat. “Lena, I wanted to see you before the graduation ceremony started to give you this.” She laid the flower necklace over her head and kissed both her cheeks. Lena noticed both Winn and Kara had similar flower necklaces. “They’re a gift from my mother. You’re still coming out to brunch with us after the ceremony, right?” Kara asked.

“Of course, I can’t wait to meet your mother,” she told Kara. It’s not like she had anywhere to go after the ceremony, her own mother vacationing in South America for the next six months, hiding out and conveniently forgetting her daughter was graduating and then taking over the company. Although, truthfully, Lena had some trepidation about brunch, her track record with her own mother coming to the forefront of her thoughts. But if it was important to Kara, she would do her best to get along with the woman who helped raise her.

“I’m heading back to my place in line, come on Kara,” called Winn.

“Okay, see you out there,” she turned away from Lena and started to hurry up the hallway.

“Kara, wait,” said Lena. She broke out of her place in line and met Kara coming back to her, grabbed her by the arm and led her to a small alcove off of the main hallway to afford them some privacy.

“Kara, I know you told me to wait...” said Lena as she stopped and instinctively grabbed both of Kara's hands in her own.

“Lena…”

“No, I want to say this, and I want to say this now before things get crazy," said Lena, squeezing Kara's hands to emphasis her point. "I can’t imagine my life without you in it. And if you will have me too, someone who is damaged and doesn’t trust easily, then I want to be by your side, no matter what life brings us, as long as we figure it out together.”

”You do?” asked a shell-shocked Kara. “But what about….” Kara couldn’t bring herself to say it again, say it out loud, all the reasons why they shouldn’t be together, the biggest reason coming in a red cape.

“Kara, I want your burdens to be my burdens. And I want to be able to turn to you in my hour of need, too. And I won’t always get it right, and maybe you won’t either, but I want us to be there for each other no matter what.” Lena moved closer to Kara, running her hands up her arms to rest on her shoulders. Kara instinctively put her hands on Lena’s waist and pulled her closer.

“Kara, I want to be with you. All of you.” She didn’t need to elaborate what the ‘all of you’ entailed. They both knew. And Lena could honestly say in that moment, she was not in the least bit scared. She felt calm and peaceful with this decision as it felt so right. And she was glad she could articulate it now to the blonde woman who was giving her such a look as if she were the prize and not the one that was lucky as hell.

They shared a long embrace and then Kara really did have to go.

---

After the graduates were seated and the organ music stilled and the President of the University had given his speech and the invocation and benediction were spoken, Lena was called to the podium, much to the surprise of one blonde Superhero girlfriend who was also on stage sitting in a chair in a cap and gown with the rest of her classmates, waiting to be bestowed with her journalism degree.

“Thank you President Danforth. Fellow students, I won’t bore you with an inadequate speech about following your passion instead of chasing money,” began Lena into the microphone. “Instead I want to lead by example. I am bequeathing to the University my patent for an invention called ‘Second Skin.’ The patent uses nanobot technology to repair human skin badly damaged by burns. It is worth a lot of money. However, the treatment could potentially cost a lot of money, too. And the wealth iniquity could price the badly needed operation out for some who can’t afford to pay. That is why a governing advisory board made up of professors, doctors and scientists from this school will help ensure that all have access to the treatment regardless of ability to pay. Even if that means the profits will not be as great.” Here the dark-haired women paused due to the raucous applause.

“And for the profit that is generated by the technology, it will be placed back into the school to fund scholarships for women in STEM, at risk individuals and people of color who need a helping hand with funding for school. Because no one should be denied education because they cannot afford tuition or a place to live while studying, or have to choose between eating and buying a book for class.” Here she had to pause again because this time the crowd not only applauded, it gave her a standing ovation, Kara the first out of her seat.

“So I leave you with this. Be creative. Be passionate. Be helpful. Be kind. Be with the ones you love. Don’t be afraid of the risk if the reward is something you truly want. Lift up those around you and let yourself be lifted in turn.” Those that were settling back into their seats made their way back to standing in a heartbeat. Lena politely acknowledged the applause again, smiling because the words had come to her last night while being held in Kara’s arms and she thought of them as her new life goals. She was just lucky they also worked for a commencement address.

For Kara, the rest of the graduation ceremony couldn’t compare to that gesture, not even when they called her name and she heard Alex’s gleeful voice rise above the noise, not even when she unfolded the sheepskin diploma once back at her seat and ran her fingers over the raised text marking her degree and her earth name, and not even when she flung her cap in the air just a little bit higher than everybody else’s.

---

Lena fiddled nervously with the pen on her desk at LutherCorp, just about ready to jump out of her skin at this hastily called board meeting for first thing Monday morning, the day after graduation. Jess opened the office door and told Lena they were ready for her. Lena glanced back at Maggie and her team holed up in her office, having come up the freight elevator so as not to be seen, and left for the boardroom.

Lena stood at the head of the table of the board of directors, having spoken to all of them save one last night by phone. The one she didn’t talk to, Mark Cranzen, the interim CEO, entered a few minutes after nine, his usually fashionably late time. “Robert, why in the hell did you call this emergency board meeting?” he spat out as he walked into the room. It was only when he was several steps in that he noticed Lena standing at the head of the table. His double take would have been priceless, if Lena wasn’t so nervous. After all, he still thought she was at the bottom of the lake from her plane being shot down.

“Mark, so glad you could join us,” said Lena in a steely voice.

“Lena, what… why...” he sputtered.

“I called this emergency board meeting. It seems we have a problem. Someone has been using LutherCorp to make illegal alien-hunting weapons and profiting off of them.”

“Yes, that’s terrible. You showed me that evidence last week,” he said as he looked around the table, trying to let it be known he was in on the investigation and hoping to gain an ally. All he got in return were stony-faced stares.

“It’s you Mark. You are the one behind the factory, the redirecting of resources and collecting the profits when they were sold,” she said matter of factly. She had the same conversation 10 times last night as she had called all the board members and presented the evidence against him to convince them to meet today.

“What? Are you crazy, Lena? How can you say such a thing?” he looked around the room nervously again.

Lena nodded to her assistant Jess, who was in the corner, and she dimmed the lights by half and turned on the overhead slide projector with the remote in her hand. Scanned documents began to flash on the screen, all incriminating Mark.

“I believe these speak volumes,” she said as she nodded at Jess again. Jess spoke into a small walkie-talkie. When Maggie and team burst in the boardroom door seconds later, Mark swore he would get his revenge on Lena (although the exact words he used were “You bitch”) and that if he had to, he would give the order to kill her again. Some members of the board had the decency to gasp. He was still proclaiming his innocence as well as shouting his need for revenge as he was led away in handcuffs and read his rights by Maggie.

---

Alex sat up straighter in the black DEO van when she got the radioed message from Maggie that she was on her way downstairs to the semi-private shipping bay off of the side of the LutherCorp building with the arrested CEO. Lena had been adamant that the press not get photographs of the disgraced CEO being led away in handcuffs. Tomorrow when the press did find out would be bad enough. The five other execs who had been in the scheme had been intercepted at their homes before they left for work earlier this morning and were now cooling their heels in a holding cell at the National City Jail.

Alex and her small team of DEO agents were there as backup to assist Maggie if she needed it. Technically, the case was about illegal alien-hunting guns and Mark Cranzen did use an alien to go after Lena previously, so technically… technically, Alex was there because of that alien component. But really she was there because Lena made Kara happy and therefore Lena was now part of her family. And she took care of her family, and that included having their back in any situation.

She exited the van when she saw Maggie and team come out of the cargo loading doors and stayed at attention until the CEO was loaded into the car and then got back in the van and followed the undercover police cars back to the station without incident.

---

“And you are assured that the Prosecutor will charge him with tax evasion and not the charge of making the weapons? After all, if that gets out, it would ruin LutherCorp,” Robert Evanston, one of the board members, said to either side of him. As the biggest shareholder, he had the most to lose if LutherCorp stock tanked.

“Absolutely,” Lena answered back to Robert. “I worked with Detective Sawyer and the District Attorney over the weekend and they agreed to the lesser charge for him and the five executives who were in on it as long as we dismantled the secret factory and put in place safeguards so nothing like this can happen again. And if the tax evasion charge was good enough to get Al Capone,” said Lena, referring to gangster from the 1930’s that the federal government had put behind bars for the very same charge when they couldn’t get him for other crimes such as murder and extortion, “Then it’s good enough for us. Plus she told me it is the easier charge to prove since millions of unexplained dollars showed up in his financial accounts and no high-priced lawyer could get him out of it. He will go to jail, albeit with a lesser sentence. And it will be in his best interest to keep the operation secret in case the police do want to prosecute him.”

This answer seemed to satisfy the board that the name of LutherCorp would not be dragged through the mud, and that the offending parties were removed and arrested. They really didn’t care how long they went to jail. The other execs would probably get 2-4 years (one of the execs being George Risling, solving one of Lena’s problems nicely) and Mark would get 3-6 years, possibly out after three years due to good behavior, the district attorney had told her on Saturday when she was brokering the deal. What Lena didn’t tell the district attorney or Maggie or anyone else was when she had been snooping in Mark’s private files, she discovered he had a rare and aggressive form of testicular cancer and was in denial about it, trying to research alternative medicines. She knew from reading the medical charts that he would probably die within the year behind bars. Yeah, Lena wasn’t too worried about his exacting revenge on her or the company.

“As the new CEO,” Lena said, feeling slightly dizzy as she felt like her whole life had led to this moment. Now was the time to put her plan into action. The plan that had formulated that night at the Italian Restaurant on her non-date with Kara. That memory gave her the courage to speak boldly. “I would like to move on to new orders of business. One, I am promoting Shirley Olivetti to head of procurement and giving her a place on the board.” Lena nodded at Jess again and she spoke into her walkie-talkie.

“The secretary?” Robert asked derisively.

Lena continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “With George Risling being one of the execs arrested, we need someone who has experience with our procurement department and runs a tight ship, and Mrs. Olivetti has been doing that for years as George only worked a few days a week.” Shirley came in the doors at that moment, spine straight like Lena had coached her this morning. Her hair and nails on point courtesy of her salon visit.

“Mrs. Olivetti already has some ideas to reduce overhead and straighten out delays in our supply chain and save the company 15-17% in the first quarter alone.” Jess had moved to the end of the table opposite Lena and pulled over a chair from the corner, literally giving Mrs Olivetti a seat at the table. Mrs. Olivetti sat down as she handed Jess a stack of folders. Jess started to pass them out to the other board members. “See her ideas for yourself,” said Lena, as the board members opened the folders and scanned the documents. Several heads started to nod in approval. 

“Next, I want to see this company do more charity work, specifically coordinating volunteer days for our employees and fund worthwhile programs and actively outreach to the community. I also want to encourage more inclusion and diversity in our hiring practices to ensure more creativity in our problem solving and help remove cultural bias in our inventions and research. So I have created a position for a new head of Corporate Social Responsibility, who will also have a seat on the board. And I can think of no one better then Jessica Ferguson.” She swept her hand back at Jess, who was standing behind her, beaming back a smile at her.

“Your assistant?” came Robert’s same voice of disbelief.

“Jessica will put her BA from Vassar and extensive charity work she does for her church and the Red Cross to good use,” continued Lena, ignoring the board member’s attempt to undermine her candidate. “She already has a job fair set up with soon to be graduates of Historically Black Colleges to scout for talent and help them navigate our employment application, and has outlined her plan for a mentorship program,” explained Lena, helping Jess to pass out her own set of folders with the requisite information.

“I also got the okay to give away over 1,000 laptops to the local Community College,” said Jess to Lena, now standing next to her. “So the new logo will be spread across the campus and beyond.”

“New logo?” spoke Robert for the third time, looking at the afore-mentioned logo in the files Jessa had handed out.

“Oh, sorry Lena,” said Jess to Lena sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”

“It’s okay Jess,” said Lena, squeezing her arm. She did not want to become the type of CEO that people were afraid to make mistakes around.

“Yes, a new logo for a new company,” she spoke authoritatively to the table of men, happy that she had just promoted two women in the last few minutes to the board, making a total of three including herself. She would also do her best to promote more women and people of color with diverse backgrounds in the coming months to rectify their image of a board of stuffy old white men. “Our new company name will be called LCorp. Marketing conducted a poll and found the name LutherCorp has so many negative connotations, mostly due to my brother, coupled with the reputation that all we manufacture is weapons that cause harm. Starting today, half the budget will go to health tech, healing sciences and medical research to benefit mankind.”

“Now wait just a damn minute,” said Robert quickly. “I can take you giving some money and a few laptops to your precious charities, and even hiring a few more minorities, but when you start making cuts to the weapons division, our most profitable product line, I will not stand for this.” He looked around the room to make sure all agreed with him.

Jess, still standing behind Lena, used her remote to pull up a slide. “Health tech is the fastest growing industry and is virtually untapped.” Lena said, stepping back to give the board a look at the screen behind her. “The health tech products we already have in the pipeline are projected to bring in a 47% profit, more than our weapons division.” She pointed at the slide that now showed the evidence and sources to back up her claims.

“Yeah, and it would be a lot more if you haven’t given away the patent to ‘Second Skin’ to your University yesterday,” said a stony-faced Robert. Heads swiveled to him and back to Lena at this revelation.

“’Second Skin’ is something I invented and held the patent exclusively. It never belonged to LutherCorp, so I am the only one who lost the profits, not LutherCorp,” she said sharply. “But if you turn to page 20 of the prospectus in front of you, you will see that the agreement I have with the University is that they have to use the newly-created LCorp lab to manufacture the nanobots, and seeing as we are the only lab in the country to be able to do that, we can charge a fair price. Plus we get access to all of the research and raw data, data that we can use for the creation of other inventions. There is a potential in ten years’ time to be able to use this technology to grow a new arm, or a new liver or new heart. Or, some now iteration we haven’t even thought of yet. And as we will be the only lab working in this field, we will be at the forefront of these discoveries. Think of the potential profits.”

Most of the board not named Robert were now nodding their heads in agreement, seeing the potential, and potential dollar signs.

“Lena, this agreement is extraordinary, what amazing foresight you had to structure the deal this way,” said Leo, an older board member.

“Well, I did just graduate business school.”

---

Lena tapped her wrist watch and then spoke into it, “My meeting is over, heading to my office now.” Kara, dressed as Supergirl, who had been expending her nervous energy by circling Lena’s building during the board meeting, tapped her ear twice and responded.

“Copy that, heading to the balcony now.” Apparently, when she and Alex had been out hunting the Shapeshifter, Lena and Winn had added another frequency to her radio in her ear and she could now hear the DEO and Lena and respond to both parties on separate channels depending on how she tapped her ear. Kara wondered if Lena would ever not surprise her with her clever inventions. Kara had been circling the building, telling herself it was in case Mark Cranzen had any more surprises up his sleeve, but really, even if Lena had been presenting a 189 slide lecture talking financial projections and dividends, and bottom lines, she still wouldn’t have been able to stay away. She still was in shock that Lena chose for them to be together, chose her. She hadn’t stopped smiling since the graduation ceremony.

Kara landed just as Lena opened the door to her balcony. It took all of Kara’s effects not to pull Lena into a huge celebratory embrace for today’s proceedings. After all, she had lectured Lena just last night that they had to make sure they didn’t touch or give way they knew each other intimately when they were in public and Kara was dressed as Supergirl. But, damn, it didn’t feel good, Kara thought.

Lena must have had the same thought, Kara noticed, as she paused when she saw her and then made her way to the balcony and rested her forearms on the top railing and stared out over the city.

“So it’s done then?” asked Kara, joining her at the railing and mirroring her pose.

“Yes, Mark has been taken away to jail, I added the new board members and explained the new name and direction for the company. It all went according to plan.”

“I loved the way your shut that Robert down!” exclaimed Kara.

Lena turned to Kara. “Kara, were you listening in to our board meeting?”

“I might or might not have used my super powers to check in to see how you were doing,” she admitted sheepishly. Lena bumped her shoulder into Kara’s to let her know that it was okay.

“Ow,” Lena said playfully, rubbing her shoulder because bumping Kara’s shoulder had basically felt like knocking into a steel door.

Kara chuckled with her. “My Mom said she emailed you those articles on female empowerment she mentioned to you at brunch.”

“Oh great,” said Lena earnestly, who had been surprised at the things she had in common with Kara’s mother and had truly enjoyed their conversation yesterday.

“She is also emailing you her famous recipe for cornbread muffins,” Kara snorted as she told Lena this piece of information. Okay, so Lena might have been trying the teeniest bit too hard to make Kara’s mother like her and had answered in the affirmative when asked if she liked to bake. But, in her defense, when Kara has introduced her as her girlfriend, Lena might have even momentarily forgotten her own name, for she was a little bit dazed at the dazzling creature sitting by her side at brunch. And in that moment, Lena would have committed to cooking a full 12-course meal out of a Julia Child cookbook to make Kara’s mother like her.

Lena touched Kara’s arm at the memory, then hastily pulled it back, wary of Kara’s words from last night. She turned back to the railing and the city below her.

“Kara, I want to thank you for the courage and conviction to make LCorp the company I want it to be.” Lena swallowed thickly. “Before I met you, I felt trapped by my family obligation and responsibility. You gave me the strength to remake it into a company that I am proud to work for. And I want my girlfriend to be proud of me, too.”

The use of the word girlfriend pulled them together like magnets. Kara opened her arms and Lena willingly stepped into the embrace, hugging her tightly. Ugh, Lena knew she violated their agreement in only one day and she vowed to be more careful in the future. But for now, she just wanted to enjoy this.

“You are most welcome. And I am so proud of you. I think there is nothing you can’t do, Lena.” For the first time since coming to earth, with Lena at her side, Kara truly felt strong.

They held the embrace for several long beats. Then Lena touched her forehead to Kara’s. This was still her favorite thing.

“Do you have plans for dinner?” asked Kara as they finally broke apart.

“Nope,” said a grinning Lena.

“How about I pick you up from work and we go back to my place. I could grill some sea bass while I watch you try to make muffins.”

“That depends,” said Lena, ignoring the lack of confidence in her baking abilities or at least her abilities to follow a recipe. “Are you coming as Kara in Benny the Beater or are you coming as Supergirl in your form-hugging outfit and we can fly around the tops of the skyscrapers as the sun sets as you cradle me in those strong arms?”

“Which do you prefer?” enquired Kara, arching an eyebrow at the dark-haired woman.

“I like them both equally,” was the honest answer.

“Well,” drawled Kara. “It is supposed to be a beautiful sunset tonight... so I think flying is in order!”

Lena looked directly into Kara’s blue, blue eyes.

“It’s a date!”